Not A Place, But A People
by wedgetail
Summary: For a time, dreams of peace and safety can sustain a people lost in the wilderness. But soon the reality of the situation sinks in – a ship not provisioned for the number of people on board, a culture on the verge of extinction and a dark shadow spreading further with every passing day. Canon divergence after Ragnarok
1. Brother Mine

Thor made it five metres down the corridor before he began to sway.

Biting his lower lip, Loki caught his brother before he careened into the wall and propped him up.

'Thor?' Loki said.

Thor's reply was a listless groan.

Loki swore under his breath. The ship was a labyrinthine jumble of cold rooms and narrow, featureless corridors. Whatever logic there was to the layout, Loki had yet to comprehend it. But there was definitely a first-aid station somewhere about; Loki had walked past it earlier. He decided to continue down the corridor, doubling back was dangerous — the remaining Asgardians didn't need to see their new king in his current state.

As he walked, he inhaled gasping breaths, the pressure of Thor's bodyweight nearly crushing his narrow frame. He opened every door he saw. The first turned out to be a storage closet filled with cleaning supplies, the second contained the controls to the fire suppression system, the third was packed to the ceiling with unlabelled crates. The fourth, however, revealed a small medical station with a single bed and a deactivated medi-bot.

'Take it easy now,' Loki said as he struggled to manoeuvre Thor onto the bed, which was both too narrow and too short. 'How are you feeling?'

Slowly, Thor brought his shaking hand up to his face. 'The lightning still flickers over the skin. You can't see it, can you? I still feel it.'

'New powers. They always take time to get accustomed to.'

'True.' Sighing, Thor palpated his right cheek, just skirting the ruined flesh around his eye-socket.

Loki glanced to the medi-bot and shook his head. He had come across many variants of medi-bots across the universe, this one looked fairly primitive. Doubtless, many people on board needed basic medical care, but Hela's work would be beyond this medi-bot's programming.

'May I see?' Loki asked.

For a long moment, Thor offered no reply. Loki wondered if he hadn't understood Loki's question or if he was debating internally whether the question was a trap. After all, Thor had finally learned the value of caution. Loki had a quip ready on the tip of his tongue when Thor dropped his hand down and shifted his head so that Loki had a better angle of his injury.

Loki leaned in to examine the blackness, even as instinct begged him to recoil. He brushed over the edge of the discolouration, uncertain what his brother's reaction will be. When Thor did not respond, he ventured deeper. The blackness felt more like charcoal than skin.

Thor must have read something in Loki's expression. 'No saving the eye then.'

There was nothing to save. The eyeball was incinerated; Loki struggled to identify what was left of the eyelids.

'You do have the face for an eye-patch,' Loki replied. 'Besides, the people of Asgard will appreciate the continuity.'

'In all that we have lost in the past few days, I ought not be upset.' Thor seemed to try to prop himself up, but gave up half-way through and let himself sink back onto the thin mattress. 'Does... Ah, I didn't ask before, are you injured yourself?'

'I'm fine. All my limbs still attached, both eyes still in place too,' Loki replied, hoping his grin masked his tiredness.

'Your tongue too. Unfortunately.'

Shrugging, Loki decided he should make his brother more comfortable and undid the clasps of Thor's cuirass, careful to avoid the still-drying blood splashed across it. Thor probably didn't realise it, Loki concluded, as he pulled the armour off his brother and set it down in the corner. While Thor had to contend with the loss of his eye, Loki had to come to terms with Thor. _Your tongue too. Unfortunately._ No passion, not even a hint of amusement. Where were the upturned tables? Where were the insults hurled at anyone and everyone in the vicinity? Well, the upturned tables had come to an end with his exile to Midgard, but Loki had still been able to draw an emotional response from him.

Maybe Thor was just that exhausted.

'What's your plan now, Loki?' Thor asked.

Maybe not.

Loki shifted back and leaned against the wide cabinet where the bulk of the station's medical supplies were stored. 'I have no plan.'

'You had me exiled, you faked your own death and impersonated our father, you were ready to sell me out in Sakaar. Sure, your mind is not spinning right now, not weighing up the possibilities. The Valkyrie was right, the power-struggles among our family have cost Asgard again and again. Why not bypass all that? What do you want, Loki?'

'I want to secure the future of what we have left of Asgard.'

'Of course.' For the first time since he had made it to the ship, irritation strained Thor's voice. This was not a conversation he wanted to have while sprawled on his back. He tried again to sit up and once, with a great amount of grunting, he managed to, he searched to the buttons that raised the upper half of the bed so that he had back support. 'Everything is for Asgard, not for your aggrandisement. Not when you had me banished and declared yourself king. Not when you took our father's place and condemned him to spend his finals days in Midgard.'

Loki pursed his lips. 'Do not say I was mistaken about your ability to rule back then.'

'No. But having seen what your rule looks like, I do wonder if there is not a touch of hypocrisy about you.'

'You mean the play? It was just a bit of fun for a feast day. As king, I attended every council and listened to twice the number of petitions father did. There were even plans drawn up for a comprehensive remodelling of the aqueducts. Not that there's a single stone left of them now; so many hours spent in vain.'

'What about beyond Asgard? There's chaos across the realms.'

'That was not my doing,' Loki said. 'I did what I could to pacify the Nine Realms, but… Frankly, it confounded me.'

Thor ran a hand through his hair, then stopped abruptly as if he realised anew that his hair had been shorn down to its roots. 'Was it Hela's influence then? Her power growing as father weakened?'

'I do not know,' Loki replied.

Not a lie, not exactly. He suspected. He feared. He hoped the Tesseract he held hidden would deliver him. Maybe Loki could even save Thor from the oncoming storm.

'Thor, lie down. Let me do what I can about the eye,' Loki said.

'Before you do that,' Thor said, 'please, be honest. How must strife could have been prevented had father told us the truth instead of painting over the less tasteful episodes of our history? Children ought to learn from the mistakes of their fathers.'

'I was honest with you before. I want to preserve what's left of Asgard.'

'Why? You always had so little affection for most Asgardians.'

Thor cocked his head, the gesture — as familiar as the water gardens of the royal palace — only highlighted how far behind them those easy, golden days lay. Loki suddenly wished he were elsewhere, hidden behind the mask of a projection.

'Midgardians say absence makes the heart grow fonder. You were an exile once, do you not remember how it felt? Besides, Asgard was mother's home. And yours.'

'But not your home?'

Loki drummed his fingers along the top of the cabinet. 'I didn't always feel like I belonged, but I've yet to find a place where I felt more at home than Asgard.' He cleared his throat, as he willed himself not to squirm under the brunt of his brother's gaze. 'Come on, that's enough prattle, lean your head back. I won't make it worse, I promise.'

'Oh, I trust you to be careful. I might not have Mjolnir, but I'm still the God of Thunder.'

'Brotherly love… At least I know where I stand.' Loki pressed his lips together in mock annoyance.

Thor let Loki tilt his head to a position that offered Loki the most favourable angle. 'Loki, I'm glad to have you here with me. If only for now.'

'I'm not going anywhere,' Loki replied.

As he worked to smooth Thor's charred skin, the Tesseract called to him, offering up the full might of its power. Loki didn't dare. Too great a risk he might draw Thanos towards them.

Of course, Thanos was coming. One way or another, the universe would burn. But to simply announce his presence was folly. What weapons did this ship possess? How many warriors were there left? Not enough. There could never be enough. Thanos couldn't be defeated; Loki just had to gamble they could reach an agreement.

He itched to flee — to commandeer an escape pod and to run to the farthest reaches of the universe. If only Thor would agree to go with him. But Thor was king now, he would never abandon his people. And so Loki too had to stay.

Asgard was not a place, Asgard was a people. Home too, he had come to understand over the years he had spent in the anarchic lands beyond the Nine Realms, was not a place. Not a palace, not a city, not a planet either.

Home was family and Thor was all the family he had left.


	2. Logisticians Are A Humourless Lot

A guttural groan stirred Thor out his dark dreams. He flipped to his back, feeling the cheap mattress collapse under his weight and tried to identify the source of the noise. But the Statesman now seemed as silent as space itself. Thor scrambled to his feet. There was no spaceship in the universe that did not make some sort of sound as it moved.

As he stumbled out of the cramped crew quarters Loki had appropriated for him earlier, he nearly collided with Bruce. The man jumped back and winced.

'My apologies —' Thor cut himself off. He understood the threat his physique represented and while he was careful when he moved, accidents did happen. But it wasn't pain or injury that inspired Bruce's wince. At least, not his own. 'It's still unsightly, isn't it? Loki did what he could.'

'It… took me by surprise, that's all. I figured magic could fix an eye.' Bruce's jaw quivered with indecision for a moment. 'And you, how are you doing?'

'I believe there may be something wrong with the ship,' Thor replied.

He knew what Bruce was really asking, but this was not the time for that conversation. Instead, he motioned for Bruce to follow him. The Statesman seemed to be a typical inter-planetary carrack, so Thor gambled that its layout would be similar to other ships of its type, which meant the mechanics were on the bottom. He paid no attention to the twisting corridors, focusing only on finding the way down to the ship's bowels.

'It's too quiet,' Bruce said when they reached the lower cargo bay.

'My thoughts precisely.'

The further down they went, the more alarmed Thor became — it was hot and acrid smoke wafted through the passageway. They were not the first ones at the scene, however. The Valkyrie and several Sakaarian rebels were already searching for the source of the problem.

'Brunnhilde?' Thor called out.

'The engines overheated,' she said, wiping sweat off her temple with the back of her hand. 'This ship is typical Holden junk. Looks top of the line, but unless you do weekly maintenance you're bound to blow something the moment you take it off-world.'

Thor raised an eyebrow. 'The lights still function.'

'Probably supplemental battery reserves. They won't last forever, 'Bruce said.

'What do we need to restart the engines?'

'Don't know. This'd be Tony's area of expertise.' Bruce shrugged. 'I mean, I can have a look —'

'We can cool the engines easily enough, give us a couple of hours,' Brunnhilde said.

Thor studied the former Sakaarians. Brunnhilde he had faith in. She had survived as a scrapper on Sakaar, she had to be familiar with ship mechanics. He had no idea, on the other hand, what the backgrounds of the former gladiators were. But looking at them, he had a feeling that if they did make trouble, Brunnhilde could set them straight.

'Do what needs to be done,' he said. 'I had better go back up and ensure no one is alarmed. Let me know if you need extra hands down here.'

* * *

If the engine bay looked troubling, the upper deck, where the survivors had huddled together the previous night, left Thor incredulous. Everyone seemed oblivious to the state of the ship, their attention drawn to the violent argument underway in the back of the room. Fists had already been bloodied, but that had only spurred the agitation. He had never expected such behaviour from Asgardians. Trying to make sense of the shoving and the abuse the warring parties hurled at each other, Thor stepped between clusters of people sitting on the floor or rising up to their feet to get a better look.

'What has happened?' he demanded.

Shouting stilled, but no one offered an explanation. Thor pulled one of the bloodied trouble-makers off the floor — just a boy, barely old enough to start training with an edged sword. A few of the others looked to be about the same age, but there were as just many grown women and elderly men involved in the argument. He knew one of them. Arnfinn, one of Loki's old tutors.

'Master Arnfinn,' he said. 'Would you be so kind as to explain the source of this disorder?'

The man nodded his head repeatedly, which immediately brought to Thor's mind a memory of Loki complaining about the man's incessant nodding. 'These boys here have raided the ship's food stores and made a feast of what they found. Others then discovered what they had done and berated them for their selfishness.'

'We were hungry,' one of the boys replied. While he sported neither a split lip nor swollen knuckles, but a dark, near-throbbing bruise dominated the left side of his face.

'We'll all be hungry soon enough,' Arnfinn retorted.

Both the old tutor and the boy turned towards Thor, clearly waiting for his judgement. Behind them, everyone on the deck had clambered up and formed a tight circle of spectators. Silence lingered — that respectful, anticipatory silence only the king could inspire. Thor curled his hand over the handle of a hammer that no longer existed.

'Boy, where are your mother and father?' he asked.

'Brandr, your majesty,' the boy said. 'They are dead. My mother died when the Dark Elves invaded, then Hela killed my father.'

Although pity coursed through him, Thor forced all emotion out of his voice. 'When was the last time you ate?'

'Not since Hela came.'

'That would've been some time ago. Well, I trust you are satisfied now.' Thor took a step back and let his gaze sweep over the Asgardians. 'No more raiding of ship stores and no more fighting. What supplies are found must be reported, so that they can be distributed fairly. If you do have a quarrel with someone aboard this vessel, you do not resolve it with fists. Take it to me, I will pronounce my judgement.'

'To whom do we report what we find?' someone called out.

It was the one question Thor picked out from at least a dozen hurled at him at once. His gaze lingered on Arnfinn, but he decided against it. The old man had become involved in the arguing. Likely some of the other participants and perhaps even the bystanders would remember that. Whoever Thor appointed, people had to have faith that person was impartial and would not hoard supplies. Thor scanned the hall.

'Bruce Banner,' he declared and chuckled at Bruce's mortified expression. 'He is —'

'What about the boys?' Arnfinn called out. 'No punishment for them?'

Thor swallowed a grimace. 'I will make use of Brandr and his friends, Master Arnfinn, which will be punishment enough. Brandr, come with me to the bridge.'

Although he wanted to get out of the hall as quickly as possible, he moderated his pace. A king had to comport himself like a king, not a schoolboy already late to his classes. Brandr trailed behind him and Bruce was even further back, having first paused to deliver instructions about the remnants of the food the boys had found.

'Where is the bridge?' Thor wondered aloud once they were beyond the threshold of the hall.

Bruce hurried to catch up and jerked his head to the left. 'This way.'

As they walked, Thor rested his hand on Bruce's shoulder. 'If it starts to become too arduous a task, you must tell me. I don't have another ship to evacuate people to.'

'Focus on the Asgardians; I will handle myself.'

Thor hoped it was true, because as the doors to the bridge slid open, he was faced with another person aboard the Statesman, who had the potential to be deadly to everyone on board. Even more disconcerting, Loki had traded his usual sly smile for an expression of bewildered horror.

'Who is the kid?' he demanded. 'Get him out of here.'

'Brandr, please go down to the engine bay and check what their progress is,' Bruce said.

Thor watched the door shut behind Brandr, then pivoted on his heel to face his brother — now that the range of his vision was more limited, side-glances had lost their efficacy.

'What do you know that I do not?'

'Some fool rerouted the water supply towards the engines.'

'Brunnhilde said they needed to be cooled. Must be that.'

Loki flicked a switch on the control panel in front of him. 'Who was moronic enough to trust a Valkyrie with something like that? Did anyone check water levels in the tank? There were already at nineteen percent. Then she mixed nista-coolant into the water. The onboard filtration system cannot clear it out, so now ninety percent of our water supply is contaminated so badly it would kill an Asgardian. I don't even know what it would do to the insides of your Midgardian pal.'

'That can't be true.' Thor strode over to Loki and studied the lit up screen above the control panel.

The bulk of the screen was vibrating with neon-orange warnings. You didn't even need to understand the text in the warnings to realise something had gone wrong.

'How much water do we need? Fandral had always had a mind for logistics, not me.'

Loki frowned. Thor suspected he too was struggling to remember their lessons on military logistics. Dagrun, the crusty dwarf, who had been appointed to instruct the princes on the subject had been the driest teacher Thor had ever suffered. Whatever minuscule shards of knowledge she had managed to impart to them at the time had been lost long ago.

'I did a bit of humanitarian aid work back in India,' Bruce said. 'Anything less than ten litres per person per day is considered a crisis situation. That's only for healthy people too. Once you start accounting for the sick, you need about a hundred litres per person. Of course, Asgardian physiology is hardier, so… maybe you need less.'

'And how many people are on board?'

'Three-thousand twenty-seven Asgardians,' Korg replied from an armchair by the larger control panel that bounded the right-side of the bridge. 'And seventeen of us from Sakaar. And me. So eighteen.'

Thor was stunned for a moment, not quite comprehending how someone of Korg's stature could make himself so inconspicuous Thor had missed his presence altogether. Then the Kronan's words themselves sunk in.

'Only three thousand made it to the ship? That can't be. How did you get that number?'

'I counted them.' Korg lumbered over to Thor and Loki, then flicked through the options on the control panel until he brought up a map of the ship, but it was Bruce who explained.

'The ship's sensors can pick up how many people are in each room and identify the approximate species. It was just a matter of adding up the totals,' he said.

'So that's accurate then,' Thor muttered. 'Three thousand left. I… I condemned everyone else to die. We can't even know how many died, can we? We'll never know.'

Loki sunk his head and played with a strand of stray hair. 'It was not your doing, Thor. How many died when the Frost Giants came? Then there was Malekith. Then Hela. We are fortunate anyone survived at all.'

Thor did not feel fortunate, and he doubted anyone else aboard the Statesman felt any different. After Loki had worked on his eye, he had been considerate enough to vanish all the blood, dirt and ash that had clung to him. The others had not been offered such kindness. Dirt had stained Arnfinn's once white shirt ochre and Brandr's boots had been speckled with blood.

But never mind the aesthetics. How many times had Thor returned from adventure looking as if he had bathed in filth? Rather, what mattered was that Asgardians now fought over scraps of food. Soon they might be fighting over water too.

No, not while Thor was king.

There was always a way forward. He needed only to rise to the challenge.

'Is there a ship manifest?' Thor asked.

Loki snorted. 'We commandeered this ship. Do _you_ have a manifest drawn up when you commandeer a ship?' he replied. 'A ship, by the way, which is now idly floating without a single functional engine. Did she poison everyone on board and not manage to get the engine running again? Because that'd be truly disappointing.'

'Brunnhilde assured me she would have the engines working.'

'And you took her at her word?'

'Brother,' Thor cautioned. Once Loki threw up his arms in a melodramatic show of contrition, he continued, 'The water situation is unfortunate, but I have to trust she will repair the engines. I'm coming to see this will be a difficult journey, too difficult for any one man. So I hope I can trust others on board to help me.'

'Of course,' Bruce said and was almost immediately echoed by Korg.

Loki, in the meanwhile, flicked back a strand of loose hair, then replied, 'I know better than to agree with any plan of yours before I hear it.'

Thor couldn't help it, he chuckled. 'You can breathe easy; it's no grand scheme to conquer the Nine Realms. What I want is information. Who are the people we have on board? What are their needs and what are their skills? And that stores do we have on this ship? The more we know, the more manageable this situation will be.'

'Eight Realms,' Loki said under his breath, but everyone in the room heard him nevertheless.

'Loki, people might like you better if you stick to helpful commentary,' Bruce said. 'Thor, you're right. Korg and I will work on auditing the ship's stores and compiling info on the passengers. You just keep your head up. If people see that you are optimistic, they will be too. As we say back on Earth — a leader is a dealer in hope.'

'Midgard has so many curious sayings,' Thor replied.

He was about to say more, but the hiss of the door sliding open interrupted him. Brandr, red-faced and panting, hurried over to Thor.

'Your majesty, they say the engines will be running in half an hour,' he said.

Thor threw Loki a satisfied grin. 'Thank you, Brandr.'


	3. Rule of Three

Bruce rubbed at his eyes. He had lost track of the number of hours since he last slept. The last few, in particular, had been exhausting. As it was, those who had lost their livelihoods were always reluctant to relinquish what little they had left. To make things more difficult, while Thor trusted him, to the surviving Asgardians he was a stranger. He didn't possess the authority that Thor, or even Loki, carried. He was hard-pressed to persuade them to relinquish to a central repository what foodstuffs they still had stuffed in their bags or had scavenged from the ship's stores.

At least, the survey seemed to be going smoothly. Korg and a group of the more senior Asgardians had drawn up a basic questionnaire. With the aid of Korg's disarming personality, the answers came quickly.

It seemed cruel to think it and Bruce would never voice his opinion in Thor's presence, but there was an advantage to the low number of survivors. Once, before the Avengers, he had found himself caught up in the floods in Uttar Pradesh —hundreds of thousands people forced to flee their homes in a single night. For the first week and a half what few aid workers there were struggled to simply count the number of people fleeing the floodplains.

Three thousand were manageable. Maybe. Back in India, the government was inefficient, but assistance was forthcoming and there were international agencies to turn to if the situation escalated. Here, in open Space, they wouldn't find the UNHCR or the World Food Program or the Red Cross. They had to manage with the scant resources they had.

Air. Shelter. Water. Food. Steve had once explained to him the Rule of Three, the rough guide the army used for the base prerequisites to survival. It didn't take much to kill a human: three minutes without air, three hours without shelter, three days without water and three weeks without food.

Fortunately, the ship provided them with both air and shelter. If there were to remain on board for a prolonged period of time, there would be problems, but as long as the ship's engines were working, Bruce thought he could manage the situation. A lack of food and water, on the other hand, could be the end of them all.

On the bed at the back of the room, Brandr shifted his limbs, but didn't stir. He had run around all day either shadowing Thor or helping Korg. When the bulk of the work had been completed, Thor told the boy to come with them to the crew quarters that Thor and Loki took for themselves. Not a minute after the boy sat down, he had slumped to the side and drifted to sleep.

Thor pulled the blanket off the other bed in the room and draped it over the boy. He stood over Brandr for a long moment, then reached down and pulled a leaf out of the frizzy curls of the boy's hair.

'From a walnut tree, isn't it?' he said softly, holding the leaf up to the light.

Loki looked up from the screen of his portable datapad. 'I think so.'

'Do you remember in the gardens —'

'Of course I do.' Loki held out his hand and Thor reverently placed the left into his palm. 'The leaf's near dry, it must've been in his hair for a while.'

'He's an orphan. Who's going to care if he brushes his hair every day?' Thor replied.

Loki shook his head and closed his fingers around the leaf.

'Don't crush it,' Bruce called out, clambering out of his chair. 'The boy might want to keep it.'

'Don't come near me, Banner,' Loki replied in the same terse tone used whenever he had to address Bruce.

Loki opened his hand to reveal the leaf now a healthy green as if it had just been plucked off the tree. He shifted his fingers a little and the leaf rose into the air. For a long moment it sat suspended in mid-air, then Loki whirled his hand around the leaf and encased it in a hollow glass ball about the size of a fist.

He offered it to Thor. 'Here. I can't regrow a tree out of a leaf, but he can keep it as a memento if he wants.'

'That's kind of you, Loki,' Thor said, then motioned to the datapad. 'Are you finished reading?'

'Unfortunately,' Loki answered. His voice was as cold as Bruce had ever heard it.

Bruce kneaded his hands, his mood sinking in pace with Loki and Thor's deepening frowns. This was bad, really bad.

'There's barely enough to feed a pair of Bilgesnipes,' Loki said, as he flicked the screen to the next page of the rudimentary inventory list Bruce and Kong had put together. 'What there is, needs to be re-hydrated. It's not safe to eat it in powdered form.'

Thor angled the datapad so he could see the screen too. 'Re-hydrated or not, there's simply not enough food. Bruce, are you certain this is everything we have aboard?'

'Korg and I made sure we scoured every inch of this ship,' Bruce replied.

Thor closed the inventory list and brought up a map in its place, but after staring at it for a second, he turned his back on the screen and began pacing the length of the bridge. Bruce glanced over to Loki, who had moved to a different screen and was examining the Statesman's schematics. For well over a minute neither brother said a word.

Bruce sighed. Was he going to have to pry their thoughts out?

'How long are we going to be out here?' he asked. 'A human can survive without food for three weeks. What about an Asgardian? You are hardier than we are.'

'Asgardians also have to consume more calories per day than Midgardians,' Loki replied. 'From the food we have, we can feed everyone properly for a little over a week. Starvation rations would stretch things out, of course, but it hardly matters. The real problem is the water supply is simply insufficient.'

Bruce swore, took a deep breath, then went on, 'Where are we at the moment? Can we stop and purchase more supplies?'

'What would we pay with?' Loki replied.

'There's no one to pay,' Thor said darkly. He must have noticed how people when they saw him and had found himself a makeshift eyepatch to hide his disfigurement, but the patch also made him seem even more grim and menacing. 'This sector of the universe is not a hospitable place; largely why Asgard relied on portals over spaceships. We are about to reach the Trelaxi System — four uninhabited gas giants and an asteroid belt formed from the collision of Trelaxi's two rocky planets. Beyond that is Kroeri territory. They are a confederation of traders, but people are the only currency they value.'

Bruce walked over to the room's porthole of a window and peered out into the boundless distance. He saw neither Trelaxi nor its remaining planets, only what looked like small boulders hurling past the Statesman. The force of Asgard's destruction had sent debris spewing in every direction, travelling far faster than the Statesman was at present — Thor and Brunnhilde didn't dare to push the engines to their full capacity.

How far would that debris travel, Bruce wondered, before it finally collided with something solid? Despite all that he had seen in the past few years, he was still unaccustomed to the true scale of the universe.

'You didn't answer my question,' Bruce said. 'How long until we reach a save planet? Where is this ship heading? We can't plan how to ration what we have without knowing how long the supplies need to stretch.'

'If we make it past Kroeri space, we will reach Alfheim. There are no wormholes or portals we can exploit, so about ten days,' Thor answered.

Loki cleared his throat. 'Alfheim is a bad idea. Last news we heard from them said Ljosalfheim was besieged and every tree in the Vale is cinders.'

'Last I heard, the elves were about to sign a peace treaty to end the civil war,' Thor replied.

'They nearly did. In the final hours before the signing, the Lord Palatine was found murdered and that set off the chaos again.' Loki folded his arms and leaned back into his chair, then jerked his head towards the wide desk in the centre of the room. 'Shall we try the food? I haven't eaten a thing since Sakaar.'

About half an hour before the engines had given in, Bruce had found a packet of bright purple chips that tasted like beef jerky and had scoffed them down. That had been more than twelve hours ago and he had a feeling Thor too had not eaten a thing all day. He lifted up the three lean packets that lay on the table. Silver packaging with an unfamiliar script was scrawled across both sides. There could be just about anything inside.

Korg had also brought up three metal bowls and a pitcher of water for them before disappearing back into the throng. Thor now lined up the bowls, ripped open the packets and tipped the powder inside in the bowls, then poured the water over the powder. The powder began to hiss and bubbled up.

'So we will be ill-received on Alfheim,' Thor said, prodding the bubbling mess in the bowls, which had turned an unappetising light grey colour.

The prod must have satisfied his inquiry. He offered a bowl each to Loki and Bruce, then scooped a handful of grey mush out of the remaining one on the table. Bruce followed his lead and had to struggle not to gag. He had eaten some unpleasant things in his life, but this had to rank among the very worst. It was tepid, the same temperature as the water had been. Neither the texture nor the taste were palatable either. If he had to guess what it was, Bruce would have said it was shredded newspaper someone had attempted to froth up into a thin porridge and seasoned with fermented cat guts.

'Ill-received is not how I'd describe it. The elves have become so paranoid, they will shoot down the ship the moment they spot us,' Loki said.

After two mouthfuls, Thor pushed his bowl away and said. 'If Alfheim is not the answer, we ought to head for Midgard.'

'Earth?' Bruce coughed. 'How close are we to the Solar System?'

'The wrong arm of the galaxy,' Loki replied.

'Four weeks at the current speed, although we should be able to coax some more power out of the engines.' Thor brought up the bowl to his face and smelled its contents. 'That's truly foul.'

Loki's face twisted with displeasure, but he ate his portion nevertheless. 'We don't have enough water,' he said between mouthfuls. 'And if the engines —'

'It's a cold death for everyone on this ship if the engines give out for good, I understand that,' Thor cut him off.

'I am not suggesting you don't. Hear me out, Thor.'

Thor waved his hand in a gesture of acquiescence.

'Have a look at the charts.' Loki motioned towards the datapad and flicked the screen to display the map again. 'The asteroid belt around Trelaxi. The planets might have crumbled, but the stuff they were composed of remains. We don't need to buy water, we can mine it.'

'Does this show the composition of the asteroids?' Bruce asked. He temporarily abandoned his bowl and leaned over Loki's shoulder to get a better vantage point.


	4. Realpolitik

'You should've let me do this!' Loki shouted.

His words were barely audible over the shuddering booms of asteroids smashing into the Statesman. But even if they had heard him, Bruce was certain neither Brunnhilde nor Thor would have replied. They were wholly focused on ensuring that the asteroids that the Statesman's collided with struck only the less vulnerable areas of the ship's body.

They had spent four hours trying to work out the best flight path, but in the end, it had been a matter of choosing the least-worst option. The asteroid belt was too dense and too new. Over time gravity pulled smaller asteroids towards the larger ones, making navigation easier, but the process was barely underway here. And the Statesman was no Millennium Falcon either. It was too large and clumsy for manoeuvres now required of it.

Brunnhilde made a sharp dive to prevent an asteroid the size of a semi-truck flying into the ship's windows. Bruce pitched forward and lost his grip, sliding across the floor until he smacked into the back of Thor's chair.

Gritting his teeth at the throbs of pain emanating from his ribs, Bruce lifted himself up, just in time for the ship to veer to the right. Once more he slid across the floor. He swore, but this time he was able to catch the edge of the control panel. He found the flimsy handholds moulded on the base of the control panel and pulled himself to his feet.

On the other side of the room, Loki had given up on staying upright and had crouched down to the floor. The ship, clearly not designed for this sort of insanity, had seat-belts only on the two pilots' seats, which was why Loki and Bruce now clung to the control panel handholds.

'At least we have something to hold on to,' Bruce muttered under his breath, fearing to imagine what it was like for the rest of the ship.

Bruce's stomach lurched as the Statesman flipped upside-down, then righted itself no more than two seconds later. But Bruce no longer paid attention to the ocean of death Brunnhilde was attempting to navigate. Amid the nausea, the throbbing of his ribs and the sheer terror of their situation, something else stirred.

'The sun's going down. The sun's getting real low…' Bruce chocked out a laugh. 'Yeah, the sun is fucking going down and not in a good way.'

The ship made a ninety-degree swoop, then the engines began to power down.

 _That_ _'s it. They've overheated again._

 _The sun is —_

A muddle of white and brown suddenly dominated the view out the Statesman's windows. The ship jerked up and down half a dozen times, then skidded to a stop.

Something beeped in the distance — the only sound to be heard.

Bruce sucked in several deep breaths until his heart began to thump at a more casual pace. He palpated his ribs. To his relief, none felt broken, merely bruised.

'I take it, we've arrived?' he asked.

Loki massaged his hands and cracked his knuckles. 'Yes, we are still alive. Nice work, Valkyrie, a real smooth ride.'

'Let's get to work,' Thor said, unclipping his seatbelt. 'Everyone should know what they are doing.'

The trouble was, Bruce had nothing to do here.

He had been excited to set foot on an asteroid. How many people on Earth had ever set foot on an asteroid? For a man with as many PhDs as Bruce had earned, he could be profoundly stupid. The asteroid was little more than seventy miles across at its widest point — a misshapen hunk of ice and rock without any trace of an atmosphere. Hulk might have been capable of surviving such conditions, but Bruce Banner was certainly not.

This was why, dejected, he watched the mining team from the bridge. The asteroid was eighty percent frozen water, so they didn't have to venture far.

They lacked the proper equipment for the task — fireworks and, rather alarmingly, cattle prods were the only things the Statesman had a surplus of. Instead, Loki used his magic to melt straight lines through the ice until he had cut out a large piece. Then the others, under the supervision of Brunnhilde and one of the few surviving Asgardian soldiers, moved the ice over to the ship.

'Bruce, could you meet down by the water tanks?' Thor's voice boomed through the ship's comms unit about half an hour into their makeshift mining operation. 'I might need your help.'

By the time Bruce made his way down there, there were two ten-feet tall blocks of dirty ice blocking the passage to the tank room. Careful not to slip on the puddles spreading across the floor, Bruce squeezed past the ice and into the room itself.

'Thor?' he said.

No reply came; Thor was pre-occupied. He held a small hatchet in his hand and was hacking rhythmically at another massive block of ice. Once he had the block in scattered pieces on the metal floor, he pushed the ice into the small opening of the nearest water tank.

'Why are you down here?' Bruce tried again. 'I thought you'd be with Korg, making sure there's no structural damage.'

Thor spun the hatchet. 'Korg's got it. I felt like a spot of ice carving.'

'I don't think a hatchet is the best implement for that sort of thing.'

'But it is the most satisfying,' Thor replied, then pointed at Bruce. 'The reason I could use you down here… There are monitors along the wall. Can you see the one for this water tank and verify we are not inadvertently poisoning ourselves. It is possible the ice is contaminated with something, is it not? This should be an auxiliary water tank, I don't want to mix this water in with the rest of our supply unless it's safe.'

'Sure, I suppose contamination is possible.' Bruce examined the beeping and flashing screens that ran along the entire side wall of the room. 'You know, you're not quite like I remember you. More cautious, I think.'

'Loki has taught me the value of caution. Doubly so when he makes a suggestion.'

Bruce took a step back, still attempting to make sense of the monitors. 'Do you think he's hatching something?'

'With my brother, I think it is best not to have any expectation that he will look out for anyone other than himself. No expectation, thus no disappointment.'

'That's harsh. He is your brother.'

Thor moved another block of ice into the room and began to break it down. They had been unable to find a way to lift up the top off the tank without causing damage, so Thor had to feed the ice through a hole barely a foot wide. But Bruce wondered if Thor was not enjoying the act of hacking it up, he seemed engrossed in the task.

When this block too had become chunks easy even for Bruce to lift, Thor spoke again, 'I do not deny my affection for him, but as King of Asgard I must also recognise the potential danger of his presence.' He glanced at the entrance, then turned to Bruce. 'And I want the ex-gladiators off this ship as soon as possible. They stand apart from the Asgardians and they know how to wield a weapon. It's too easy a target for Loki. Already they have staged a revolt once, with a few whispered words from the right person they could do it again.'

'You know him best, of course.' Bruce paused while he reached for the right words. 'Just don't go overboard with it. Caution is good, paranoia is not.'

Thor raised the eyebrow over his missing eye. 'Loki faked his death and impersonated my father.'

'As I said, you know him best. As to the water, I can't make heads or tails of this script. Can you read it?'

Thor studied the monitors, then sighed. 'System alerts all over. It can't make a reading when the water is frozen.'

'Technology. There's always something.'

Thor squatted down by the water tank opening and thrust his hand inside. He breathed in deeply. Tendrils of white light sparked into existence, snaked across his arm and down into the water tank. At first, it was a rattle as chunks of ice banged against the tank's steel sides. Soon it became an angry churn and the entire top of the water tank throbbed.

The sensors let out an angry series of beeps and Thor pulled his arm back, thin bands of lightning still flowing over his skin.

Bruce's eyes fluttered over the now violent flashing of the monitors. 'What was that for?'

'I wanted to speed up the melting process. The sensors are displeased, but they can make the readings now. I'll read them out to you,' Thor answered.

'Go on then. I just hope you didn't muck up the calibration on the equipment.'

Thor went through each display and to their relief, Bruce found nothing alarming about the results. They released the water into the primary tank, then started breaking down the blocks that were building up in the walkway outside. Evidently, Brunnhilde pressed the mining team to work hard.

'Thor,' Bruce said. He had been meaning to speak to Thor in private and this seemed as good an opportunity as he was going to have before it became too late. 'I wanted to talk to you about Earth.'

'Are you concerned about bringing Loki back to your planet?'

'No. Well, possibly. I'm more concerned about how your people will be received.'

Thor set down his hatchet. 'I'm not sure I understand your meaning.'

'You need to consider how your arrival will look to the governments of Earth. Another ship full of aliens appearing without a warning will send off all sorts of alarms,' Bruce said.

'Another ship of aliens? Are you referring to the Chitauri? We are not coming to Midgard to invade, we seek only shelter.'

Bruce reached for a way he could explain without offending Thor or Asgard. Having helped stop the Chitauri invasion, Thor became a popular figure on Earth and in turn, Thor had become fond of Earth. But for all the time he had spent on the planet, Thor had learned little of the darker side of humanity.

'Thor, people on Earth are afraid of the unfamiliar. Although Asgardians might look like people on Earth, you are different.'

'Despite what your ancient tales say, we are not so different. We are not gods. We are born, we live and die.'

Bruce scoffed. 'You live for five thousand years. Five thousand years! Do you know what was happening on Earth five thousand years ago? The Bronze Age. And you can fall from the top floor of Stark's tower and survive. You can even command lightning. Sure, you're exactly like the average human.'

'My strength exceeds that of other Asgardians.'

One of the former gladiators appeared at the doorway. 'One more block ready to go.'

Thor motioned for the block to be shifted inside and picked up the hatchet. Bruce wondered suddenly if one strike of Mjolnir could have melted the entire block. Although Thor worked quickly with the hatchet, in his hands, it looked like a child's toy.

'How can any of the politicians on Earth be sure of that? Besides, they don't need to be as powerful as you. Parts of Manhattan are probably still being rebuilt after the destruction Loki and the Chitauri caused.'

'Then I will invite representatives from your planet onto the ship and let them see where we stand. That is if we are not too weak to stand by the time we reach Midgard,' Thor replied. Although his words were steady and calm, he swung the hatchet with far more force than he needed.

'You have to be prepared to be refused. It could be decided that three thousand individuals potentially possessing abilities similar to yours are too dangerous. It would not be the first time humans have turned away starving refugees at their door.'

Thor turned to look directly at Bruce. 'And if I am not prepared? Sometimes a situation leaves one with few choices.'

Bruce's breath caught in his throat. This, right here, was exactly what the governments of Earth would be terrified of when Thor reached the planet. Humans knew the capabilities of their own kind. They understood the balance of power in their world. The presence of beings like Thor, to an extent even Bruce himself, changed everything. It swept away all that they thought was certain and made clear that on the grand scale of the universe, humans were among the lowest of the low.

'The strong do what they will, the weak suffer what they must, is that right?' he said. 'Realpolitik is something I'd expect from Loki, not you.'

'Do you count us the strong ones in this scenario?'

Bruce bit his lip. 'Not at the present, but you have the capability to be. Think of it this way. You find a tiger cub by your door. Do you take it in, feed it and raise it, knowing that one day when the cub is grown it might turn around and kill your entire family? Or do you suffocate it now, when it's weak and ensure your family's safety in the long term?'

'So what you are actually saying — the strong will do what they must to preserve their power,' Thor concluded and kicked a nearby chunk of ice into the opening of the water tank.

'No, look —'

'I thought the Midgardians more honourable than that. Very well, if not Midgard, what would you have us do?'

'Well, I don't know, what alternatives are there?'

Thor kicked more ice into the tank. 'Unless we want to trade with slavers, none.'

'Look, you are remembered fondly as one of the Avengers and Earth does owe you a debt. Asking for your people to be resettled on Earth is probably too much for Earth to stomach, but if you make a plea for supplies so you can continue your journey elsewhere, I think you'll be supplied with as much as you need.'

'Earth would make Asgardians a problem for someone else to solve. I see.'

'Is there anywhere else you can resettle if you can reach it?' Bruce said cautiously. The longer they spoke, the colder Thor's tone became and he was all too aware that should Thor lose his temper, there was a risk Bruce too would lose control of himself.

'There is Vanaheim. It's sparsely populated and a similar climate to Asgard. It's also four months travel from Midgard.'

'If you're properly provisioned, it wouldn't be so bad, would it?' Bruce said. 'Maybe you can even send someone ahead and negotiate an agreement for your resettlement there.'

With an absent-minded nod, Thor moved one more block of ice from the corridor into the room.

'Maybe,' he said and brought up the hatchet to check its edge. 'Maybe we won't reach Midgard anyway. We still have to fly out of this accursed asteroid belt.'


	5. Tree Without Roots

'There you are, your majesty,' said Erna, as she held out the shallow bowl with the day's rations for Thor. 'You are sure this is all you will have?'

'This is all I need, Erna, thank you,' he replied, reminding himself that he should only have to suffer this regiment for another week and a half.

He glanced at the contents of the bowl — a pale pink porridge speckled with unidentifiable flakes of brown. To prevent rumours that those in charge of distributing food were hoarding supplies, Bruce organised a new different team of people to hand out the food each day. This seemed to be working well enough, except that every time Thor went up to collect his portion he received some variation of this same question. Each time, the urge to give in and ask for more became stronger.

Thor walked back past the mass of people still lining up to receive their daily meal. Feeding three thousand people each day was no easy feat. Bruce, Korg and Thor had spent hours debating the arrangements for food distribution, going back and forth about how many meals people should receive each day and whether it would be more orderly to have multiple areas where people could collect their meals.

In the end, they had agreed on a single meal per day and a single 'kitchen'. It was the simplest arrangement to manage — there was no need to inflict unnecessary headaches on themselves. Besides, better one larger meal to soothe the hunger pains (if only for a few hours) than two or three, each portioned out so small they provided no satisfaction what-so-ever.

A few doors down from the bridge, there was a small break-out area with metal tables and flimsy chairs where the Statesman's off-duty crew could eat. The room was packed — everyone clamoured for the dignity of eating at a proper table. One table, however, hosted a single occupant and three vacant chairs. Loki had few friends aboard the Statesman.

'What inedible filth is there on offer today?' Loki asked as Thor sat down opposite him.

Thor motioned towards his bowl. 'For the life of me, I have no idea. Care to take a guess?'

'I don't want to look at it, let alone try to figure out what it is.'

Thor shrugged and dug into the porridge. When the first spoonful didn't leave him wanting to gag, he went for a second and a third. Within twenty seconds he emptied the bowl and leaned back.

'That was almost nice for a change,' he said and sucked the spoon clean. 'Sweet and somewhat like huckleberries.'

Loki pulled an apple out of his pocket and turned it in his hand. 'You must've lucked out and got the packet intended for the crew, not the passengers.'

Thor grimaced. As far as they could tell, for the most part, the Grandmaster had used the Statesman to transport machinery and bulky cargo. But the longer they remained on the ship, the more obvious it became that at times the Grandmaster had breathing cargo aboard.

'Where did you get the apple?' Thor asked.

'It's the last of the stock from Asgard; Korg requisitioned it from someone's bag. I talked one of the women serving today into exchanging my porridge for it.'

Thor ignored the laughter that rang through the left-hand side of the room and placed his hand over Loki's. 'You traded your ration for an apple, is that what you're saying?'

'The dehydrated stuff doesn't agree with me. An apple is better than no food at all.'

It was possible Loki spoke the truth, he supposed. So far every meal he had seen Loki eat while on the Statesman had been a visible struggle for his brother. The Jotunn did typically eat fresh foods and cured meats, which posed little problem on Asgard, as the Asgardians favoured a similar diet. On Midgard, however, the S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel responsible for Loki's internment before Thor returned him home had asked if he had dietary restrictions. They had become concerned after Loki had thrown up everything he had eaten for several meals in a row.

'If that is so, I'll check if there is anything else we can find for you,' Thor said. While he was at it, he would make sure also check in with the woman who had allowed Loki to make the trade and hear her side of the story.

'Thank you.'

Thor dropped his hand and waited for Loki to sink his teeth into the apple, but Loki merely peered at it.

'What's the matter?'

Loki spread his hand open and let the apple sit in the centre of his palm. 'It may well be the last apple ever.'

'Oh.'

'When I eat it, that's it, no more.' Loki said softly, then continued in a sharper tone. 'It doesn't seem like much, does it? All yellow, kind of small, bruise on one side. It's probably over-ripe by now. I suppose the last of something is rarely an impressive specimen.'

The last of something? Thor stared at the apple for a long moment, attempting to work out if Loki had turned the apple into some oblique metaphor, then decided to take the words at face value. He didn't have the energy at the present to puzzle out Loki's word plays.

'It looks like a perfectly good apple to me,' he said. 'You can't regrow a tree from a leaf, yes? What about from the fruit?'

Loki chuckled and offered Thor a self-conscious smile. Usually, Thor associated this smile with the moment when Loki's schemes had gone awry and he had been caught out, but sometimes it meant something more innocent.

'Did you not think of that?'

'Well, I'm known for my silver tongue, not my green thumb,' Loki replied. 'I'll save the seeds. When this little adventure is at an end, I'll find someone I can trust to plant them.'

'What are you planting?' Brunnhilde said as she strode over to their table. She pointed to the empty seat beside Thor and once he indicated that the seat was vacant, sat down. 'Neither of you look like the gardening type.'

'Oh, I don't know, Loki quite enjoyed snipping off our mother's favourite roses when he was a child.'

'I was planning to give them to her in a nice bouquet before someone arrived with his usual gang of louts. If I remember right, both the flowers and I ended up in that muddy stream at the back of the garden.' Loki retorted.

Brunnhilde shook her head and ran her spoon through her porridge. 'Do you know the problem with your family? Not one of you can let anything go.'

Although Thor's reflex was to defend his family, he held his tongue and gestured for Loki not to argue with Brunnhilde either. She had a point. Whenever Thor or Loki brought up a memory of some perceived injustice from their childhood, the other would bring up an occasion when he had become the victim. The conversation then descended into a spiral of accusations and regurgitation of old hurts. Typically, the retelling of those stories inspired howls of laughter from everyone in the vicinity (their mother had always been the sole exception in this), but they also left Thor and Loki infuriated at each other all over again.

'I'll have a look through the list of everyone on board and see if there is someone we can rely on to safeguard the seeds,' Thor said. He tried, but couldn't quite keep his voice jovial. 'Can you eat the apple now, please? You're already skinnier than anyone should be.'

'Sure.'

Loki took a tentative bite and chewed it thoroughly before swallowing. Although he seemed to enjoy the taste, Loki continued eating at a measured pace as if he didn't trust his stomach not to revolt at any moment. Just how badly had he been faring with the food aboard the Statesman until now?

Unfortunately, at present Thor had bigger issues than Loki's diet to deal with.

'Concerning the list,' he said. 'Have either of you looked the breakdown of who we have aboard?'

'I haven't read much of your data, but looking around, it's pretty clear — old people, women and their children.' Brunnhilde said.

'Nearly two hundred orphans too.' Thor's gaze jealously followed the path of Brunnhilde's spoon from the bowl to her mouth. 'There are few left of those who could handle a weapon.'

'That needs to be remedied. The universe isn't kind to anyone who doesn't know how to handle themselves,' she replied.

'Certainly, Hilde, but we have to be realistic. I don't know, will anyone have the energy for it? We are on a meal a day and it's hardly enough to feel full.'

Brunnhilde seemed to consider his words, then gestured at a group of girls a few tables away, who giggled over some make-shift card game. 'It's easier to suffer hunger when your mind is focused elsewhere. What's more, idleness is dangerous. This is a guess, but from the tales I have heard about the two of you, I suspect it was true for you as much as it was for me — the more opportunity you had for idleness in your youth, the more ludicrous your exploits became.'

'Oh, that's definitely true.' Loki chuckled.

Thor too smiled, but almost at once sadness overtook him. So many of those adventures he had shared with Hogun, Fandral and Volstagg, who now supped in Valhalla. At least Sif had not been there when Hela came. She had always been more observant than the Warriors Three, so Loki had thought her a risk and ordered her banishment from the Nine Realms. Thor held onto hope that one day their paths would cross again.

'All right, we'll teach them what we can with the equipment we can find here. When we reach Midgard, we should be able to broaden our options and draw up a proper curriculum,' Thor said. 'But, Brunnhilde, I want you to be in charge of this.'

'Me? You are a far greater warrior than I am. I abandoned my oaths and fled —'

'And you returned.'

Loki rested his elbow on the table and leaned forward. 'You see, Valkyrie, my brother has always had a thing for female warriors. You should've seen how dejected the All-father looked when Thor interrupted his stories about his glorious conquests and asked to hear more about the Valkyries.'

'It is a matter of practicality and nothing more,' Thor replied. 'Asgardians are a warrior race, but after we ended our campaigns of conquest and became more of a peacekeeping force, it became considered unseemly in certain circles to teach their daughters how to fight. Sif was one of the few among my generation who learned anything beyond rudimentary combat. We can't permit ourselves such luxury any longer.'

'I do hope Sif is well,' Loki said softly.

A weak attempt to goad him, but it was one. Thor gritted his teeth, wondering if at this point Loki's desire to get a response from Thor had become a compulsion Loki no longer had any control over.

Sighing, Thor went on, 'When they see your skills, the young men will learn to respect the abilities of women. The girls, in the meanwhile, will be less intimidated about participating in the lessons. Who knows, perhaps we might even inspire the older women to join in.'

'Fine,' Brunnhilde said. 'I get the impression you won't accept a no from me anyway.'

* * *

There was a knock on the door to Thor and Loki's quarters. Before Thor had the chance to respond, however, the door was pulled open and a panting Brandr stood in the doorway.

'There is an argument in Sector 6!' he threw out between strangled breaths. 'One woman says —'

'Don't bother, Brandr. I'll hear it all from the involved parties anyway.'

Thor rose to his feet. Although they journeyed through open space, they tried to retain their sanity to keeping their schedule approximately the same as it would have been back on Asgard and by Asgardian time it was near midnight.

'What were you doing over there?' Thor asked as he and Brandr made the winding trip down to Sector 6.

Brandr ran his tongue over his lower lip and grinned innocently. 'I was just playing a game and wasn't paying attention to the time.'

'What sort of game?'

'Just some silly stuff. You wouldn't be interested.'

'Humour me.' When no answer came from Brandr, Thor paused mid-stride and looked directly at the boy. 'What is it that you don't want to tell me? Come on, out with it.'

'Mercy. That's what we were playing,' Brandr said and dropped his head to avoid looking at Thor.

'What in the… ah, hold on, I remember.'

He did remember that ridiculous game. It was about as simple as games could be. Two players grasped each other's hands with interlocked fingers and either twisted the opponents hands or bent the fingers until the opponent surrendered. Sif had once broken Loki's wrist playing it.

'Did you win?' Thor asked.

Brandr glanced up from the floor. 'I never do.'

'I can show you a few sneaky tricks to improve your odds,' Thor replied. 'Though I probably shouldn't. It can get rather wild.'

'Yeah. Mum always yelled at us when she saw us play it. She said we'd end up with dislocated fingers.'

Brandr's eyes fled back to the floor and he walked with his shoulders slumped. Thor got the impression he wouldn't get much from else from the boy at the moment, so he nudged him on to Sector 6, but uncertainly gnawed at him. Surely Brandr was not that upset about losing the game.

They could hear the shouting before they entered the sector. This was a small section of the middle deck intended for the ship's lower-ranking crew. The corridor, which seemed narrower than the standard, was lined with metal doors behind which were sleeping quarters. Some doors were open so as he walked past them Thor could see the layout in these rooms was similar to the room he and Loki shared, but cramped into half the space.

'Who is shouting?' Thor called out. 'Show yourselves at once!'

The corridor had been empty, but within seconds doors were swung open and heads stuck out. No one's presence was as dependable as a rubbernecker's. But the overlapping yelling cut out too and three people hesitantly emerged from a room further up the corridor: Arnfinn, his wife and a second woman whom Thor didn't recognise.

'Brandr, go back up and go to bed,' Thor said quietly so only Brandr could hear him, then turned his attention to the three quarrellers. 'Would any of you be so kind as to explain the cause of this noise?'

Arnfinn's wife all but leapt forward. 'This woman is insufferable. She always —'

'You're a gnash-gabbing swine!' The other woman's voice drowned her out.

'Stop there!' Thor ordered. 'Enough. You have disturbed everyone around you already. No more. We will go to your quarters and will discuss it at a reasonable volume. And without insults.'

He ushered them back into the room, then followed them in, bending down to avoid the top of the door frame. The three of them shared a space intended for two. Arnfinn and his wife stood by the bed on the right, while the second woman kept to the bed on the left. Books, clothes and countless other knickknacks were sprawled across what small floor space there was, leaving the half a foot by the doorway the only available space for Thor to stand.

'My pardon,' he said to the lone woman. 'I do not know your name. Could you please explain what caused your disagreement?'

'It's Heidrun, sire. They accuse me of rifling through their things. The always do, but have a look at this chaos! Their bags are everywhere; it's hard to take a step without tripping over it. This evening I dropped a necklace, I was searching for it when Skadi walked in and began screeching,' she replied.

'She was elbow-deep in things that don't belong to her,' Skadi scoffed.

'And what say you, Arnfinn?' Thor asked.

The man shook his head. 'I was not here. I only defended my wife from the abuse hurled at her.'

'She always touches our things. Our clothes, Arnfinn's books.'

'How can I not touch something when it's everywhere?'

Thor threw up his hands to calm the two women. 'Living in close quarters, especially with strangers is difficult. It is even more so when there is disorder. There are unused storerooms on the upper deck. You can keep your property there.'

'It will get stolen,' Skadi replied.

'We can set up a password that only you, your husband and I will know. Will that satisfy you?'

'Yes, certainly.' Arnfinn nodded. 'Please, if I can have five minutes to gather things up.'

It took more than a quarter of an hour in the end before Arnfinn was ready to go. Thor had been bewildered the amount of stuff in the room, but it turned out Arnfinn had a talent for packing and managed to fit the bulk of his and his wife's belongings into three bags. Thor picked up the few books that remained.

'I will be back shortly, love. Don't wait for me,' Arnfinn said as he and Thor headed out. He was silent until they left the sector, then turned to Thor. 'I will be glad to see my books secured, but I fear this will change little. Skadi and Heidrun don't much care for each other. They will quarrel at any excuse.'

'Yet now there is one excuse fewer, is there not?' Thor replied. 'Do you share the bed with your wife?'

'It's that or the floor. Besides, we keep each other warm; this ship is colder than the Lakes of Volund in mid-winter.'

'It could be warmer,' Thor agreed. He tilted the books in his hands so he could read the titles and smiled. 'The Tales of Agnar the Dwarf. I know this one; it was one of my favourites when I was young.'

Arnfinn pushed his glasses, which had begun to slip off, back up to the bridge of his nose. 'It's popular with children. My grand-daughter would demand a story from it every night.'

'Is she —'

'She didn't reach the ship. We lost track of her mother and her in the chaos. There were so many panicked people, if you fell, you just didn't get up again.'

'What about your sons? There were three, weren't there?'

'Yes, all three in the royal guard. All three did their service.'

Thor wanted to smack himself over the head for raising the topic when the answer was so obvious. If Arnfinn and Skadi had surviving family they wouldn't be sharing quarters with a stranger. Moreover, Thor had read the list of people aboard. He had learned the names of every able-bodied male and none of Arnfinn's sons were among them.

'I'm sorry for your losses,' he said.

'Thank you, your majesty.'

When they found a suitable storeroom, Thor helped Arnfinn place the bags onto the shelves, but once it was time to place the books on the shelf, Thor found himself hesitating.

'All the books in the palace library are dust,' he said and shook his head. 'One more thing we've lost. It seems like every hour, I think of something else that's now cinders and ash. It's maddening. How am I supposed to move forward and plan for the future if my every thought circles back to the past?'

Thor ran his fingers through his hair, his mind catching up to what had just tumbled out his mouth. That had been too frank, inappropriate for a ruler conversing with a man outside his trusted circle. He searched for words that could correct the situation. The old man, however, didn't seem to have noticed.

Arnfinn nodded absent-mindedly, then said, 'I would be worried if your mind did not reach for the past.'

'Ragnarok is still at the forefront of everyone's mind, that is true.'

'That's is not quite where my thoughts lead.' Arnfinn pursed his lips. 'You speak true when you say Asgard is a not place, but a people. But a people are more than a group of individuals fated to suffer the same calamity. Do you know what makes us a people?'

Thor frowned. It was rather late for philosophy.

'Our history? Or traditions?' He threw out the first things that came to mind.

'Quite right, your majesty,' Arnfinn said. 'Whence we come, what we believe, what festivals we celebrate — these are the things that define us, make us for what we are. But all of these will exist only as long take care to remember them. If we don't, Asgard too will seize to exist. A people without knowledge of their past is a tree without roots.'

A vision of the future Arnfinn envisioned came to Thor far too easily. Asgardians, the few that remained, staring up at strange, lilac skies and firm in the belief that they had always dwelled in this place. Asgard and Ragnarok reduced to a shadow of a memory, better preserved in the myths of Midgardians than among the descendants of those who had once called Asgard home.

'How do we… So much is already gone.' Thor ran his thumb over the embossed titles on the books still in his hands. The books were not new — in places the gold foil had flacked off and some of the spines were bent.

'If you wish to teach those on board how to fight, we should teach them what they should be fighting for,' Arnfinn replied, as if his words were obvious to all.

'You mean a school? History classes?'

'Precisely. It will be difficult, I have no doubt. No proper materials, no texts. I have gathered a small group of those with similar inclinations to mine; we are reconstructing key texts lost in the destruction, but it is slow work. It will be slower yet if we are to divide out time between teaching and writing.'

Thor rolled his shoulders and with a louder thud than he had intended, set down the books on the shelf by one of Arnfinn's bags. 'It is not an easy time for anyone.'

'No, it is not,' Arnfinn sighed.

The garish light of the corridor made a spectacle of every line on the man's face. At that moment, he looked ages-old and it seemed cruel that he had to live through these events when he ought to be living a peaceful life in retirement. What right did Thor have to be irritated to hear the man suggest he would not relish the work ahead of him?

'We shall organise lessons as best we can. Thank you for bringing the matter to my attention,' Thor said, trying to replicate the tone his father used when he responded to petitioners. 'You are a wiser man than Loki let on.'

Arnfinn stood mute for a moment, then chuckled. 'You're easier to impress than your brother, that is all.'

'I very much disagree,' Thor replied. 'There is one thing I would ask of you and your group. When you are writing your account or teaching, tell them how it really happened. Don't skip the unsightly details. '

It still galled him that his father had hidden Hela's existence from him. His father had tried to paint over and scrape away so many unpalatable passages of his life. Had Loki known from the beginning who he was would he have become a different man? Had Odin spoken of Hela and her avarice earlier, would his sons and his wife have better understood his reaction to Loki's reckless ambition? In the end, the lies proved more ugly than the truth would have been.

* * *

A/N: In case anyone is interested, I've been using the UNHCR Handbook for Emergencies, 3rd Edition as my go-to reference for this story. If you are interested in how humanitarian logistics work in real life, definitely check it out (it's freely available online). It's an amazingly comprehensive reference on how to run a refugee camp and things like that.

Also, how did you find the pacing in this chapter? These scenes were supposed to be two different chapters originally. Ever since I mashed them into the same chapter, I've been second-guessing that decision.


	6. At the Journey's End

'What are you doing in here?' Loki demanded, slamming the door behind him.

Brandr, who presently sat cross-legged at the foot of Thor's bed, paled. 'Nothing. I just, um, didn't want to be in anyone's way. I thought Thor wouldn't mind.'

Likely he wouldn't. It seemed to amuse Thor to have Brandr around. He enjoyed the boy's incessant questions and the sickening expression of awe Brandr's face sunk into whenever Thor entered the room. Loki, on the other hand, minded very much. Like everyone else on board the Statesman, the boy had been allocated his own living and sleeping space.

'Who are you trying to hide from?'

The boy drew his legs together and rested his chin on his knees. 'No one.'

'Is that so?' Loki said. 'Don't you have somewhere else to be then? Scram, kid.'

'Don't make me go back. Please.'

'What are you talking about?'

The moment the words came out of his mouth, Loki regretted them. He didn't want to give the boy an impression that he cared for the answer. And if he had to ask the question, there were better ways of phrasing it. Better tones to go with it too, something that didn't make the boy flinch as if he had been slapped.

In lieu of an apology, Loki pulled over a chair and sat down a couple of feet away from the boy — close enough for a conversation, but distant enough to avoid the suggestion of any sort of intimacy.

'Brandr, why are you in here?' he said quietly.

'I don't want to go back to class,' Brandr replied. 'I was in Sector 3, but then Thor saw me and told me to go to class, but I don't want to.'

Loki stifled the urge to roll his eyes. He shouldn't have asked. He felt lousy enough as it was, now he had children's drama to deal with.

'So you are hiding from Thor in his own room.'

'He's busy, he won't be back here until evening.'

'Fair point,' Loki replied. 'Which class is this anyway? Did you tell him why you were skipping it?'

Brandr's eyes widened in horror. 'I can't tell Thor.'

The answer left Loki bewildered. What could there possibly be that the boy couldn't tell Thor? Had someone made a nasty remark about Thor and the boy got himself kicked out of class for defending his idol's reputation?

The rudimentary school that had been cobbled together aboard the Statesman over the past week was led by men like Arnfinn, who had spent years at the court and knew how to state their opinions without giving offence. However, experienced teachers were few among the remaining Asgardians, so craftsmen and widowed housewives had been accepted as volunteers to fill in the gaps as best they could. It was nigh impossible to predict what would come out of their mouths once they actually stood in front of a class.

'What were you supposed to be doing in class today?' Loki asked, in hope that Brandr's response would narrow down the possibilities.

'I don't know.' Brandr shrugged. 'Same as every day, I guess. Hitting each other.'

That, in fact, narrowed the matter much more than Loki had expected.

'This is about the Valkyrie's self-defence classes.'

Brandr made a face. 'I've never been good at wrestling or running or jumping or any of that kind of thing. It's embarrassing.'

The boy was scrawny with bony arms and legs. Having seen him run, Loki thought he had promise as an endurance runner, but he was no sprinter. Exactly the kind of child who could neither run away nor fight off the bullies.

'What does Thor have to do with it?' Loki said.

'Why would he want someone like me around? He's so good at everything and I… um, I tried to do a high kick and fell on my arse. I'd rather be doing magic.'

Loki raised an eyebrow; finally the boy had said something interesting. 'You can do magic?'

'A bit.'

He extended his hand towards the shelving above Thor's bed where Thor stored the few personal items he still possessed. At first, it was a jerk barely visible to the eye, but then Brandr found his stride. Thor's hairbrush and age-old pan-flute rose into the air. For several seconds they floated above the bed, then Brandr flicked his fingers. The pan-flute and hairbrush landed onto the bed with a soft thump.

'Maybe one day I can do that instead of punching people,' Brandr said as he returned Thor's belongings to their designated places.

Loki chuckled. 'And that is why Thor knows better than to dismiss someone just because he's not good at physical combat. Who taught you to do that?'

'My mother. A talent for magic ran in her side of the family.'

'If you want, I can teach you a couple of other tricks.'

'Can you?' Brandr grinned. 'Can you teach me how to turn someone into a frog? Is it true you did that to Thor once?'

'Clearly, the Mighty Throg shall live in infamy forevermore.' Loki snorted.

He had underestimated the boy, that much was plain. Brandr could prove to be useful. Thor would never suspect his pet orphan worked for the other team; the opportunities for pranks were endless.

'Live animals are complicated,' Loki said. 'We can start with simpler things and work up to frogs. But on one condition.'

'What is it?'

'You must continue your combat training.'

Brandr shook his head. 'But what's the point? If I can do magic I don't need to know all that.'

'Believe me, that's not how life works. You may be attacked when you are not expecting it, you may not be able to reach your abilities. There are many ways in this world to bind a person's magic.' Loki grimaced and made a concerted effort not to follow the dark trail his mind naturally led him down. Some memories had to remain unrevisited. 'More generally, when something is difficult, it makes it more worthwhile to learn, not less.'

'But… That's not true. Instead of wasting my time getting thrown around by the others and not getting any better, I can spend the time becoming the best at magic.'

'If you keep practising, you will get better. Maybe slower than the others, but you will see progress.'

Brandr's expression turned into a pout at that, which lead Loki to wonder if the boy had heard the same sentiments before. Loki had many a time as a child. Only later, when his fists and his knives saved his life again and again, did he learn to appreciate his father's insistence he continue learning how to fight. There was no point telling Brandr that, however. Some lessons need to be learned through experience, not a lecture.

'Here's my deal,' Loki said. 'One hour of lessons with me for one hour of lessons with the Valkyrie.'

Brandr groaned.

'Take it or leave it, kid.'

'Fine,' Brandr sighed.

'Good. Now, off you go to class.'

'But it's be finished by now. Can't we work on magic instead? I can go to class tomorrow.'

Loki cocked his head. 'If you missed your own class, you can join the next one. Come on, I'll walk you over.'

* * *

Brandr had been right. When he and Loki reached the narrow hall where Brunnhilde and the less intimidating of the ex-gladiators taught self-defence, the children lined up all looked to be a few years younger than Brandr.

Each child held a makeshift staff made out of spare plastic or metal piping Korg had found in some dark cranny of the Statesman. They moved through the drill listlessly, the antithesis of the exuberant energy Thor and the Valkyrie had reported after the first few days of classes. But then they had been at it long enough now to have realised that there was nothing exciting about training for combat. The drills were dull, repetitive and all too often in Loki's experience, painful.

'Go on.' Loki gestured towards the two spare staffs lying by the door.

Brandr sighed, but picked up a staff and found a place for himself at the back of the room. Loki would've stayed to make sure the boy didn't duck out of the lesson halfway, but Brunnhilde's glare made clear he was not welcome as an observer.

Eventually, he found himself near the bridge and heard his brother's laughter drifting out from inside the room. He hadn't heard Thor laugh in such an unguarded manner for a while, so curiosity got the better of him. Inside, he found Thor with Korg and Banner staring out the ship's windows.

'Do you know how many people from Earth have been out here?' Banner was saying as Thor chuckled and patted him on the shoulder.

Loki strode over to them and tried to puzzle out what held their attention. 'Is that a planet?'

'It's Saturn!' Banner replied.

For all the reverence in Banner's voice, Loki saw nothing special about the orange ball glowing in the distance. Nor did he understand how the planet had caught anyone's attention in the first place. The only way you could see it was if you all but pressed your forehead against the glass and turned your head as far as you could.

'Is it inhabited?' he asked.

'No, Bruce is merely excited to be within his home system again,' Thor said.

'I see.' Loki turned his back to the glass. 'So we still aim for Midgard.'

'Of course.'

Loki switched his attention to one of the control panels and traced with two fingers the iridescent line of the ship's projected flight path. Midgard was so close now Loki could all but smell the car fumes. Yet it seemed so odd, although it felt like they had spent half a year about the Statesman, the idea that in two days' time they could be walking on solid ground and eating real food seemed surreal.

Or others would be. For all the assurances and arguments Thor could try to offer, Loki held no confidence that the Midgardians would treat him kindly.

Sometimes all Loki wanted to do was to grab Thor by his hair and shake him until the stubborn fool gave up his idiotic plans. It probably wouldn't work as well now that Thor's hair was short, but Loki would be willing to try it. Unfortunately, not right now. They had committed themselves to their destination, it was too late to change.

'We need to adjust our flight path,' Loki said, already reaching for the controls. 'Unless the real plan is for us to collide with Mars.'

Although he knew what Thor's reply would be, while he corrected the balance of the thrusters, he threw out one last argument against a stop on Asgard. Thor, in turn, humoured Loki with a sardonic reply. His real focus, however, was on what Loki was doing with the controls.

Loki pursed his lips. With this constant second-guessing of Loki's every move, Thor was practically begging for his pillow to be turned into a nest of centipedes.

'What is that?' Banner said.

'It appears to be a spaceship,' Korg answered, 'Where did it come from?'

Loki had a ready retort on the tip of his tongue about how the view changed when you adjusted the direction you were flying, but then he looked up from the control panel. The ship, too large for its full girth to be visible from the Statesman's windows, lifted itself up onto the Statesman's path. Why hadn't the alarms gone off? The ship was close enough; it would have been close enough for the proximity sensors to pick it up half an hour ago. Loki flicked to the scanners and swore. The closest object they registered was a moon of Saturn.

'These scanners are useless. Why doesn't anything on this ship work properly?' he said as he switched back to the navigation control. 'Of all the things we could've stolen from that damned planet, it had to be this piece of junk.'

'Maybe it's damage from the asteroid belt?' Banner replied. 'Can we just avoid it?'

Thor frowned. 'They moved into our flight path, what is the chance that was an accident? Whose ship is this? This is not Midgardian technology.'

'Best not to pick a fight you are not prepared for one,' Loki replied.

He abandoned the control panel in favour of the pilot's chair where the controls for manual flight were located. With a dark look on his face, Thor climbed into the co-pilot's chair.

'The size of that ship alone,' Thor said. 'I don't like the look of it.'

'Nor do I.'

Loki switched off the auto-pilot and banked the ship sharply — the kind of manoeuvre that made it clear to any observer that the Statesman wanted to avoid the approaching vessel. He held it at that angle for a good twenty seconds, until Saturn and its bands of rings were almost straight ahead. Loki checked the sensors for the flight direction of the other ship, but they still failed to show any ship at all.

'Where's it now?' he asked. 'Korg, Banner, can you see it from the windows?'

Just as Loki finished speaking, however, the bottom of Saturn's rings disappeared from view. Soon Saturn itself was gone, in its place now hovered a sleek, black cruiser flanked by two fighters.

 _Even better._

'I think they want our attention,' Korg said.

Loki slammed the breaks and called out, 'Where is the IFF on this ball of useless junk?'

They didn't need to look for it. An alarm went off, signalling an incoming video link. Rubbing his temple, Thor switched it on. The central panel of Statesman's windows turned a solid grey and flickered to display an image of a pale, yellow-toothed creature clothed entirely in black.

'Good day,' Thor said.

The creature smiled and it seemed its entire face was jagged teeth. 'Good day, Thor Odinson.'

What little had yet remained of their jovial atmosphere in the room five minutes before fled. Thor's shoulders tensed; behind him, Korg and Banner quietly moved over to the key control panels.

'It seems you have me at a disadvantage. You know my name, but I do not know yours,' Thor replied.

'I am known as Corvus Glaive. I am servant to Thanos, the Destroyer of Worlds, the Breaker of Kings. My master would like a word with your brother, Loki Odinson, if he is on board your ship.'

Fury colouring his face crimson, Thor turned to his brother, but Loki could offer no reply. His breath had solidified into an unmoving lump in his throat and all warmth fled his body.


	7. My One Condition

A/N: Just want to give a shout out to my reviews. I try to get back to everyone, but if I haven't or you were a guest review, please know I appreciate you all taking the time to provide feedback. It's been a bit of struggle to write the last chapters of this fic (beginnings are easier than endinds), so knowing that there are people who are enjoying my writing really helps me stick to my writing schedule.

* * *

Thor clenched the armrest of his chair and searched for a suitable reply to Corvus Glaive. All that came to mind were questions. What was this creature? Who was Thanos? What was this ship doing on the edge of Midgardian space? And above all, how was Loki tied to all this? But to give voice to any of these thoughts would betray the weakness of Thor's position. He cocked his head and ventured to the one he thought least revealing.

'What business does your master have with my brother?'

Before Corvus Glaive had a chance to answer, however, Loki jerked up. He turned off the camera pointed at Thor and switched on his own instead.

'Loki,' Thor hissed, aware that the ship's microphones would pick up every sound in the room and transmit it out for Glaive to hear.

Either Loki didn't hear him or pretended not to. He closed his eyes, exhaled a shuddering breath and spoke, 'I will come and speak with him. Expect me on board your ship shortly.'

'Hail, Loki Odinson,' Corvus Glaive responded. 'What a pleasure to see you again, after all this time. We had heard you had enjoyed a brief stay on Sakaar, before stealing a ship and fleeing, but what a surprise to find you here. The master will be so pleased.'

'I expect I shall make his day,' Loki said dryly and switched off the video link.

Thor bolted out of his seat and grabbed Loki by the collar. 'What is happening here? What have you done now?'

'What I had to.'

'I asked you,' Thor snarled. 'I told you to be honest with me.'

Loki peered up at him with vacant eyes. 'Do you really think this is some scheme of mine? As if I knew his ship would be here.'

Thor pushed his brother away, sending Loki crashing into one of the control panels. He barely noticed Loki's strangled groan. _No expectations, no disappointments_. He had suspected Loki could bring some calamity upon them and had tried to prepare himself for it. A king had to remain vary, he had told himself, knowing full-well it was merely an attempt to steel himself against another round of disappointment.

Except, here they were once again. And despite his attempts to prepare himself for this eventuality, Thor still only wanted to unleash the sum of his rage on his brother.

'I was certain you would make trouble for us sooner or later,' Thor said through gritted teeth. 'It pains me all the more to know I'm proven right. Again.'

Loki pushed himself upright and not quite meeting Thor's eye, replied, 'Some things cannot be undone, no matter how much one might want them to be. And one simply has to deal with the consequences.'

Not waiting for Thor's response, Loki fled the bridge.

'What's going on?' Bruce asked.

Startled, Thor whirled to face him. He had forgotten Bruce and Korg were still in the room.

'I don't know,' he said. 'I… As a precaution, tell everyone to head to the escape pod. I need to understand what mischief Loki has caused today.'

Thor let Bruce and Korg's words wash over him as he hurried out. They had all become intimately familiar with the Statesman over the past weeks, so he knew where Loki would head — the escape pod nearest to the bridge. Loki was already inside the ship when he reached it, so Thor carefully climbed up the ramp after him, then crouched down behind a section partition.

'I know you're there; the deaf would hear that stomping,' Loki called out. 'Get out. You are not coming with me.'

Thor straightened up and ventured into the cramped cockpit itself. 'I am coming. And if you attempt something, I will pummel you senseless and drag your skinny arse to this Thanos myself so he can tell me himself how you two know each other.'

Loki bit his lip and, accepting that arguing with Thor further would be futile, turned to the pod's controls. 'You don't know how tempting that proposition is. But then, maybe if it just the two of us, it will be neater.'

While Thor squeezed himself into the co-pilot's chair, Loki fired up the pod's twin engines. There had never been a man who better epitomised the image of a man walking towards his executioner than Loki did at this moment. What little colour there ordinarily was to his face had fled and his entire frame trembled. Thor had seen Loki in a great number of wretched states — exhausted from battle, humiliated in defeat, despairing in prison, but he had never seen him quite like this.

'Loki,' he said, consciously trying to sound gentle, rather than indulging in the full force of his fury. 'Tell me who Thanos is.'

'He is what Glaive said he is. The Destroyer of Worlds and the Breaker of Kings.' Loki steered the pod out of its bay on the Statesman. 'When we are aboard his ship, you have to let me do the talking. One wrong word and —'

Thor groaned. 'Stop circling around the subject! Where have you met him before? What does he want with you?'

'What does anyone ever want with me?'

'What kind of an answer is that?'

Loki smacked his fist into the side wall of the pod. The cabin lights flashed, then three of the bulbs exploded. Thor threw up his hand to shield his face, while Loki merely continued staring right ahead at Thanos' rapidly approaching ship.

'Since you insisted on coming, do us both a favour and be silent,' he said through gritted teeth. 'I need to think.'

'I don't want to walk into a situation I don't understand.'

'Did I ask you to come?'

Thor let his head sink into his hands. 'Yes, true. But I am here now. Why can't you tell me?'

'You'll find out soon enough,' Loki replied. 'I'd rather savour these last few minutes.'

That was as much as Loki was willing to say. He met all of Thor's further cajoling and threats with stubborn silence, never veering his eyes from their destination. Even the two fighters that had positioned themselves on either side of the escape pod and Corvus' cruiser flanking them didn't merit his attention. Only when the gate to the landing dock of Thanos' ship slid open and Loki manoeuvred the pod inside did he turn to Thor once more.

'For both our sakes, control yourself.'

Compared to Thanos' ship, their escape pod looked about as insignificant as a lone sparrow perched on the side of a mountain. If the size alone was not daunting, the amount of activity going on left Thor longing for Mjolnir anew. Their clunky, unarmed escape pod was one of what had to be a hundred different troop carriers and fighters parked on the dock. Thor's only solace was the number of technicians and droids milling about — the bulk of Thanos' fleet seemed to be undergoing maintenance.

'Welcome aboard the Sanctuary,' Corvus Glaive said as he strode down the steps of his cruiser, followed by half a dozen armed men. 'You brought your brother? Interesting. Well, we had best not to delay further. This meeting is very overdue.'

His guards launched at Thor and Loki. When the first one reached for Thor's upper arm, he grabbed the blue-skinned man by his hair and flung him a tray of maintenance equipment twenty feet away.

'Thor!' Loki called out as he sank to his knees and brought up his hands in a gesture of submission. 'Just let them.'

Grimacing, Thor caught himself halfway through a punch aimed at the second guard to approach him and let his hands fall to his sides.

'I'm sorry. I'll come willingly,' he said, taking care his tone didn't carry the distaste he felt. He understood the value of a strategic submission to the enemy, but he had always despised doing it.

The words must not have come across as entirely convincing, however, as Glaive's men hesitated to approach him until the blue-skinned one climbed to his feet and strode back over to Thor. With a sour look on his face, he back-handed Thor, then ordered the others to seize him.

Glaive cackled. 'Now we all know our place. Good. Let us go.'

He moved fast, his pitch black robe billowing behind him as he moved. Thor and Loki, secured by two guards each, trailed behind him and the two remaining men formed the rear-guard to their group. Two floors up and half a mile of corridors later, Glaive led them into a long, dimly lit hall. Thor could just make out in the far end of the room a massive chair suspended a foot above the floor. As they approached, the chair turned, revealing its occupant — a stern-looking figure who made the Hulk look amicable.

The guards threw Loki and Thor onto the ground before the chair and scrambled back.

Loki rose up only to immediately slide down to his knees and dropped his head. 'Lord Thanos.'

'Ah, Loki. Do you know how overjoyed I am to find you alive?' Thanos said. He had the voice of a man who lacked the capacity for an emotion as delicate as joy. 'There have been few others who have disappointed me more than you have and none of them remain among the living.'

Fear seized him; Loki's words back in the escape pod echoing in his mind with a new intensity. Those could well have been the words of a man anticipating his end in the very near future.

'You are right,' Loki said, never lifting his eyes from the patterned tiles on the floor. 'I have disappointed you. I am a disgrace that lives only so long as your mercy will it. But it is my hope, I might make up for my earlier failings with a gift. It is —'

'You don't mean him, do you?' Thanos pointed his thick finger in Thor's direction.

For the first time, Thanos's attention fell directly upon Thor and he felt his knees turning weak. There were some beings in the universe who didn't need to prove their power, they emanated it. This man was one of them. Thor gritted his teeth together. He needed to do something, not just stand around like a fool. If only he knew what either Loki or Thanos wanted out of this meeting.

'No. He's not a gift, he is my one condition.'

Thanos laughed, the sound reverberating against the room's hollow walls. 'You come here… You have failed to conquer Earth, you have lost the mind stone! Yet you come here before me and instead of grovelling, instead of begging for forgiveness, you expect me to reward you!'

'He was your ally in your invasion of Midgard?' Thor asked.

Loki threw him a dark look, but it was too late. Thanos's chair edged forward and he glared down at Thor.

'Is this the famed Thor Odinson? I didn't invite you aboard my ship. I should have you thrown out the airlock. Or is there a different death you desire for him, Loki?'

Loki's reply came before Thor had even opened his mouth. 'That's my brother, yes. All muscle and no brain, it's almost tragic. But I'd rather like him alive actually. Dead is dead, torment of the living is boundless satisfaction.'

Thor bit into the inside of his lip. The quip about his intelligence had not been meant for Thanos, but meant solely for Thor as one more warning to hold his tongue.

'Torment of the living is boundless satisfaction? I know you well, Loki and I can see when you over-play your part. The anger you once felt towards him is long spent,' Thanos said.

'You are… You're right. That's true. We all have our weaknesses,' Loki admitted. He took a breath, then cocked his head. 'Don't we? For instance, you have a great fondness for gems. Specifically, those older than the universe itself. I have one such stone.'

The Tesseract. In one moment all that had gnawed at the edges of his consciousness for the past two years converged. The Tesseract. Loki's Sceptre. The Aether. This was what the Norns had warned him about. And all the threads and the chaos that had assailed the universe of late led back to Thanos.

'Loki,' Thor whispered. 'Don't do this. You can't do this.'

His words produced no response from Loki.

'I do admit. You have me intrigued.' Thanos leaned forward and seemed to examine Thor from head to foot. 'So which stone is your brother's life worth?'

Loki shook his head. 'My life and my brother's both. I hand you the stone, then we fly away and you forget either of us exist.'

Thor started, but couldn't find a single word to say. Loki was ready to trade the universe for the two of them. That was Thanos' aim, wasn't it? Thanos wanted to be known as a destroyer of worlds. When a man like him sought the infinity stones, he didn't do it so he could put them up above the mantle-piece and quietly admire them over his morning cup of coffee.

No. He couldn't let Thanos near the Tesseract.

Thor turned his shoulders a little until he could see behind Loki. Corvus Glaive and his bodyguards waited in the murk around the entrance to the hall.

'It would be a fine deal,' Thanos replied. 'If only you hadn't failed me before. Eager with anticipation at what you could achieve, I put the sceptre in your hand and you failed. Worse, you lost the sceptre itself.'

'I can tell you where the other infinity stones are,' Loki said. 'The mind stone, the time and the rea—'

'Do you think me such a fool? Why would my ship be here, in this dull corner of the universe, if I did not know —'

 _Oh, brother, the traps you get yourself caught in._

In a single smooth move, Thor flung a ball of lightning at Thanos, grabbed Loki by the back of his collar and sprinted across the room. There was no time for acting. He threw Loki at three of Glaive's men and swept the other three out of his way with a foot wide bolt of lightning.

'You thrice-damned half-wit!' Loki screamed as he lifted himself off the ground and shuffled away until he backed into the wall.

Glaive drew a sword.

'Bring them to me,' Thanos' voice boomed over them all.

Thor glanced back. His lightning seemed to have made no impact on Thanos whatsoever. Thor swore. He needed his brother and not just as a blunt object he could fling at their opponents.

'Loki,' he called out, sidestepping to avoid the sweep of Glaive's sword. 'Have you lost your mind? You are not handing the Tesseract to him!'

Thor edged away from Glaive's thrust once more, then leaped to the body of a guard he had near incinerated with his lightning. Amid the man's still-scorching clothes, Thor found a sword and brought it up just in time to block another of Glaive's attacks.

'Loki!' he shouted.

Glaive was a skilled swordsman; each movement was sharp and precise. Thor, unused to the weapon in his hand, struggled to match Glaive. Worse, in the periphery of his vision he saw Thanos' chair slide towards them.

'I could make use of this one,' Thanos said.

Thor didn't hear Loki's reply. Glaive parried Thor's counter-thrust and lunged towards him. With his off-hand, he punched Thor in the centre of the chest. Thor's armour protected him from any pain, but the force Glaive generated produced enough momentum to send Thor sprawling onto his back and his sword tumbling out of his hand. Thor kicked out, hoping to catch Glaive, but found only air.

Glaive appeared above him and Thor snarled at his own stupidity. The man had noticed his eye patch and had made sure to approach him from an angle that left him invisible to Thor's reduced range of vision. With a satisfied grin, he pointed the tip of his sword at the hollow of Thor's neck.

'The people of Earth think you a friend,' Glaive said. 'That will be useful to us.'

Thor palpated the ground in a futile attempt to find his sword and shook his head. 'I will not help you. I will slit my own throat rather than live knowing I helped your master in any way.'

'Bold words. Loki too had much to say before he learned better.' Thanos' voice dripped with amusement.

An unseen hand wrapped around Thor's ankles. It pulled him across the floor, flung him through the doors and into the wall of the corridor. As Thor climbed out of the resulting rubble, his brother leaped through the hole Thor's body had created in the doorway.

'Run!' Loki shouted, already sprinting down the corridor.


	8. Sod's Law

Loki needed time to think.

But there wasn't the time.

Thor, always the more physically capable of the two, had overtaken Loki and was now ten feet ahead, at the threshold to the landing dock's ante-chamber. So far they had been lucky enough not to meet any resistance. But Corvus Glaive possessed a modicum of intelligence, it would have taken him all of a split second to figure out where Loki and Thor were heading.

Thor came to a sharp stop at the doorway to the landing dock and peered over the edge the doorway at the commotion happening among the ships.

'A couple dozen armed men,' he said. 'More filing in.'

Loki shrugged, he hadn't expected anything else. 'We should separate. Find the fastest ship you can and get out of here.'

'I'm not —'

'I'm going to be right behind you, just they won't know that,' Loki hissed. 'Get to a ship.'

Thor frowned, trying to work out Loki's plan. Typical. Well, there was no time to draw diagrams. Loki shoved his brother forward.

Knowing that Thor's arrival would draw attention, Loki used the moment to his own advantage. Neither part to his plan was difficult, he had successfully done both more times than he cared to count, but blending the two smoothly together was a challenge. Ordinarily, he would have simply found an underused corner to perform his magic, but he didn't dare to do that aboard the Sanctuary. There could be cameras everywhere; Thanos would work out too quickly what Loki had done.

Loki clenched the side of the doorway with his left hand, watching Thor electrocute everyone and everything within twenty-feet of him. A flash of white flooded Loki's vision. When colour and shadow returned to his world, his sight had split in two.

He glanced to his hand. The edge of the door-frame jutted out, almost cutting into the bottom of his palm. He felt the pain and the metal's growing warmth as it leeched what heat there was in his body. Yet he couldn't see his hand.

He could, however, see another hand resting against the side of his left thigh.

 _Perfect._

Loki directed his alter-ego out onto the landing dock. He had to focus on making this Loki walk in a straight line and not to fumble over his own feet — dual vision always took a few minutes to adjust to.

Thor had already cut a broad path of destruction through the room, so Loki slipped out onto the dock and hurried to catch up to his brother. Being invisible, he worried less about being attacked than being left behind.

His alter-ego, however, had to make a show of putting up a fight. He reached down to pick up a blast gun from the corpse of a soldier brought down by Thor's wild spree of lightning and thunder. The alter-ego swerved to the quartet of guards heading for him and fired. Nothing. Thor must've short-circuited something inside the weapon.

Loki, in both forms, swore.

The alter-ego dropped the blast gun and swept up his hand. Magic lifted all four guards twenty feet in the air before depositing them back onto solid ground with enough force to ensure that they would not be getting up for a while, possibly forever. Hoping the fall didn't damage their weapons, Loki directed the alter-ego to sprint over to the nearest one and grab his blast gun.

To his satisfaction, this one worked perfectly.

Thor had spotted a suitable ship — a sleek fighter with an open cockpit and a partially-loaded weapons bay. Loki climbed into the ship just a fraction behind Thor and, after briefly considering the jump seat in the back, made for the co-pilot's chair instead. You needed more than two hands to make full use of a ship like this.

Although he sat mutely in the co-pilot's chair to avoid anyone noticing his presence in Thor's fighter, Loki could still help. The alter-ego grabbed a second blast gun from among the casualties and turned both weapons towards the men trying to climb into Thor's ship. Loki had sacrificed his last chance with Thanos to avoid giving over Thor to his mercy, of course he would provide cover fire for Thor. Loki's life was forfeit, he knew it, Thanos knew it.

'Loki?' Thor said softly and ducked to avoid blaster fire aimed at his head.

'I'm here. Don't worry.'

Thor muttered something incoherent under his breath and powered up the engines. The fighter jerked to life, then both the weapons bay and the cover of the cockpit slid shut. A few moments later, the ship made a violent lurch forward, ripping its towlines, then lifted off.

The alter-ego turned on his heel and made for the nearest intact-looking fighter. Climbing inside, Loki saw that this ship looked somewhat different, probably an older model of the type Thor had chosen. Not good. If he was going to try to out-run Thanos, he needed his ship to be top of the line.

It was too late, however. He would only risk his alter-ego getting captured if he tried to go for a different ship now and Thanos wouldn't take long to realise he'd been duped. The alter-ego started up his fighter and brought it up into the air.

'They are closing the gate,' Thor said. 'Can you?'

Loki made a face. He needed to keep himself hidden, he needed to make sure the alter-ego didn't drive his fighter into a wall and now Thor wanted him to take care of the dock gate.

 _Sure, brother. No problem at all._

Careful to keep distinct in his mind the alter-ego's controls and those in front of him, Loki brought up the selection for the fighter's weapons system. There was no time to study what was available, so he selected the first thing on the list.

The fighter jolted, then a missile, easily five feet long, sped out the front of the ship and into the heavy metal door. A heartbeat later, it exploded. The door became flakes of shrapnel that rained in every direction. They scraped deep gouges into the cockpit glass on both Thor's and the alter-ego's ships. Loki was sure anyone who had been in the vicinity was either in pieces already or was about to die a painful death.

Thor angled the fighter to avoid a jagged edge of the gate and drove the fighter out into space. The alter-ego's ship sailed out of the Sanctuary just after them. They had managed to survive Thanos. So far, at least.

'I still have the Tesseract, so they'll be coming after me,' Loki said. 'I'll keep them distracted with the false me; you just get out of here as fast as you can.'

'What about the Statesman?'

Despite the damage they had inflicted on the Sanctuary, they had hardly knocked out the bulk of the force Thanos had on board. Already fighters, some with identical insignia to that of Thor's stolen ship and some bearing the image of a peculiar three-headed beast on their tails, began to spill out of the Sanctuary. They split in two, one cluster following Thor and the other trailing the misshapen spirals of Loki's alter-ego.

Thor pushed the throttle further forward, but it was already positioned as far as it could go. 'Is he going to attack the Statesman? Even if he thinks you're not there?'

Loki released the invisibility spell to ease some of the strain on himself and brought up the available weaponry on the alter-ego's fighter. Nothing. The technicians had stripped out all weaponry before starting their work and there was not so much as blast gun on board. Loki snarled with frustration.

'Loki!'

'Stop screaming my name,' Loki snapped back. 'I'm trying to think.'

'Think faster.'

Three red lights joined the fighters pursuing them, moving faster than the ships themselves. Thor tried to outmanoeuvre them, but no matter the turns or the dives he made, the three lights still followed them. Loki released the chaff and a muddle of metal spilled out from behind the fighter.

'Did it work?' Thor asked.

'Wait.'

Loki split his attention across the monitors on both fighters. The alter-ego's pursuers were keeping pace, in no hurry to deploy weapons against his fighter. Thor and Loki's, on the other hand, were not hesitant to be aggressive. They crept ever closer, but the three red lights were closer still. A blast of light. A second. A third. Whatever Thanos' men had sent after them, the chaff had confused them enough to set them off.

'It worked,' Loki said. 'For now. He's trying to kill you. Me, he wants to wait out — the fuel on these things lasts maybe a bit over a day. He wants me taken alive.'

'If he captures the fighter, will he know it wasn't you piloting it?'

Loki suspected Thor already knew the answer. He had picked up enough about the capabilities of Loki's magic to realise that any double Loki could conjure at a moment's whim had serious limitations. This one was only capable of basic speech and possessed a hollow body that would dissipate completely after a few days.

The alter-ego needed to die. Blown into red mist preferably, so the lack of a surviving body would not appear suspicious. If only he had explosives on board — a dignified suicide would have worked so well.

Except that wouldn't be the most intelligent move, not if other people were to live, Loki realised. 'If he thinks I am dead or if he realises he has been duped, he will wonder if the space stone is lost forever. And then he will take out his fury on the Statesman.'

Thor glanced over his shoulder at Loki. 'Then don't die. And don't get captured.'

The words left Loki squirming. The tone of them — it might as well have been their father speaking, not Thor. Worse were the unspoken words that followed. _You got us into this, you fix it._

'I know, Thor, I know.' Loki rubbed his forehead with the back of his thumb. 'We need to take out the fighters after us. After that, maybe we can take care of the ones pursuing my double.'

'There are five behind us,' Thor said. 'What do we have?'

Loki turned back to the munitions list and tried to work out their options. The bulk of it consisted of simple bombs, which were more suited to blasting apart fleet flagships and Midgardian cities than skirmishes between fighters. The missiles, however, he could work with. It only took him a few seconds to program the missile seekers.

The rotary launcher in the weapons bay shuddered as it slid into position and released two missiles. The sharp burst of their thrust vector control momentarily blinded Loki, but it dissipated as quickly as it had appeared and the missiles sped towards their destinations.

Loki began preparing a second set of missiles, while also trying to keep his alter-ego in rein. If only he would've had the opportunity to spend more time on it; this alter-ego was barely capable of following more than one command at a time. True, 'avoid the ships pursuing you' was a single command, but it was a complicated one. The alter-ego's flight pattern was erratic and aimless, full of aborted dives and ugly turns. Loki struggled to keep track where its fighter was in relation to everything else in the vicinity.

'Be careful, will you?' Loki muttered as Thor banked the ship by what had to be one-eighty degrees and made Loki's hand slip along the controls. 'You nearly made me launch these things at ourselves!'

'Nice work!' Thor called out.

It took Loki a moment to realise that Thor hadn't been replying to his comment. He whipped his head to the screen displaying the space behind them and grinned. Five fighters had become four. It had been an easy enough ploy too — program the missile to follow one fighter and while that ship's pilot tried to avoid it, switch the program to target a different fighter. Sometimes having multiple ships was a disadvantage.

The second missile was still in play as well. Since it had missed on the first pass the missile made a graceful arc and now pursued Thanos' fighters. The remaining pilots sensed the danger, so they released their own chaff and a chaotic mess of metal poured out behind them. Loki, however, had another surprise for them. He released two more missiles, which flew straight towards the two fighters closest to Loki and Thor's ship.

One swerved right and into the path of its comrade. A moment later you could barely tell that the jumble of twisted debris had once been space ships. The other took a more conservative avoidance manoeuvre. The missile clipped its engine, then unfortunately collided with the missile Loki had released earlier, but it had done its job. The fighter listed and spun downward, rotating at a speed clearly not dictated by the pilot.

'One more,' Loki said.

Two missiles left, after that, he would have to rely on their air-to-surface arsenal. He couldn't afford to make a mistake here. It was ironic, he supposed, that it had been the Chitauri, acting on Thanos' behest, who had taught him about this style of warfare. Perhaps had the Chitauri the intelligence to actually use the full capabilities of their equipment in battle, New York might have turned out differently.

He shook his head, forcing himself back to the present and readied the remaining missiles. A two-prong approach would be best. There was only so much a pilot could do when missiles were speeding at him from the opposite directions.

'Loki! More coming in!' Thor shouted.

The remaining pilot had deployed two more of his own weapons. But there was no more chaff and any other anti-missile defence this fighter was supposed to carry was still aboard the Sanctuary. Loki's chest tightened. If need be, these missiles could pursue their target for an hour.

'Don't try to be clever, use everything we have,' Thor said, clenching the fighter's controls.

Loki nodded. 'Keep moving, as fast and as straight as possible.'

He lined up every bomb they had and released them in clumps of two, hoping that the ship's onboard systems were calibrated correctly. If they weren't, all his calculations would be off. Seconds ticked over, each seeming to last halfway to eternity.

A pulse of pale blue light flashed into life behind them. A split moment later a second pulse echoed the first and then an entire, blinding chain of light blazed behind the ship as the bombs exploded one by one. In that cacophony, Loki had no hope of making out what had happened to the missiles. He yelled for Thor to continue flying straight. The further they were from the blast zone, the better.

When the energy pulses of the bombs faded and the space around them returned to its indeterminable colourlessness, Loki peered carefully at the screen, then whipped his head around to try to see through the back of the cockpit. No missiles. Good.

But also no fighter in pursuit. Had it gotten caught up in the explosions? Surely they hadn't been that lucky.

'Can you see him?' Loki asked.

'No.'

It didn't feel right. Loki turned back to preparing the remaining two missiles and once all he had to do was to press the launch button, he turned his full attention to his alter-ego.

Nothing.

Loki frowned, trying to reconnect with his double. It wasn't like him to lose concentration like this; he had centuries of practice. Yet nothing came, his mind reached for something that simply wasn't there.

He thought back to the last image he remembered seeing through the alter-ego's eyes. Five fighters in tight formation trailing behind. Flashes of light in his path. An ugly, desperate swivel to avoid getting caught in the shock-waves spreading out from the blasts. The grey nose of another ship, also trying to escape the reverberations, sailing into view.

The screen was useless, as was the vantage from his seat. 'Thor, can you see the remains of the last fighter after us? Turn us around if you have to.'

Thor changed the angle of their flight path, then glanced back over his shoulder. 'I'm not sure that's the one. But there are half a dozen fighters converging on the wreckage of that one.'

'Wreckage of two more like.'

Loki closed his eyes and dropped his head. Were the Norns mocking him?

 _All be damned._

'The ship following us crashed into the one my double was piloting. Now they are trying to retrieve my body,' he said.

'We are in open space! Didn't you see it coming? How in holy hell did you manage to collide with anything?' Thor replied sharply.

'I was busy keeping you alive!' Loki knew the part he played in this calamity, but as ever, Thor's angry tone stirred anger in him too. 'Contrary to what you seem to think, magic involves a bit more than just a snap of your fingers.'

'I should snap your neck. For the sake of everyone else who has to live in this universe.'

Loki found himself eager for a fight. He had plenty of his own frustration to vent. But when he started, about to fling an bitter retort at his brother, he found himself at a loss. Some things were indefensible.

'I lost concentration and made a mistake. I'm sorry,' he said after a long silence.

Thor shifted the fighter's flight path once more. 'Why should I believe you? You've told me how sorry you were back on Svartalfheim, remember? All of that was a lie.'

'Hardly. Do you really think —'

'And what was your plan back there exactly, Loki?' Thor asked. 'Your offer left Thanos unimpressed.'

'Oh, he and I would have come to an arrangement. Just not at a price I cared to pay.'

Thor turned his shoulders as far as his seatbelt would let him and peered at Loki, before refocusing on the control panel in front of him. 'You only entered the fray when he threatened me,' he said slowly, as if the cogs of his minds were still turning. 'Why the sudden concern for my welfare? I am hardly defenceless.'

'I told you not to come with me.'

'Bloody hell. How about a real answer for a change!'

The clear frustration on Thor's tone, left Loki certain that if not for the seatbelt restraining them to their seats, Thor would have grabbed him by now and used all the advantages his size offered him to get the answers he wanted out of Loki.

'You want the truth? Fine. You don't know Thanos like I do,' Loki replied, shaking his head. Thor, despite all that he had seen of the universe, still remained an optimist at heart. 'And if you think your Midgardian friends will stop him, you are wrong. The Avengers will die, slowly and painfully.'

'So you would just give in?' Thor said.

Loki shrugged. 'You cannot stop Thanos any more than you can halt a tsunami.' His eyes widened as a familiar ship came into view. 'Why are we heading back to the Statesman? It's about to become a death trap.'

'I can't abandon Asgard. We need to —'

'We need to get as far away from here as possible. The other side of the universe would be perfect.'

'I am the king of Asgard.'

Loki groaned at the unshakable, inexorable finality of Thor's tone. Stubborn fool _._ He could tell him everything Thanos had the ability to do, explain in every graphic detail all Thanos had inflicted upon him in the months before the invasion of Midgard and he would achieve nothing.

He slumped in his seat and watched as the Statesman drew nearer. It was a consolation, Loki supposed, that at the same time the Sanctuary was diminishing in size. Evidently, Thanos had a date to keep with Midgard and trusted his underlings to take care of Loki and Thor.


	9. A King Dies With His People

After the colossal size of the Sanctuary, the Statesman seemed all the more pathetic. Its hull was a patchwork of scratches and dents. Once they berthed back at the small bay intended for the escape pod they had left back with Thanos and climbed out, a foul smell assailed Loki's senses. This was a pitiful end for the once proud Asgardians.

'Where is the best place to set up the Tesseract?' Thor asked.

 _So this is his plan. I should_ _'ve guessed._

'That's not an option, Thor,' Loki said quietly. His irritation at his brother's decision to return to the Statesman was suddenly replaced with a sense of profound sadness. 'Not for what you're thinking. Perhaps if I were alone, I would maybe consider taking the risk…'

'But you are too afraid Thanos will be able to track you if you use it.'

'He will, no question about that. But that's secondary.' Loki chuckled mirthlessly. If only he could offer Thor a better answer than this. 'An infinity stone can't be used on a whim. I try it without the proper tools or preparation and at best, I will open a portal to a supernova or somewhere similarly inhospitable to life. The worst case — I will incinerate myself, the ship and half of this solar system.'

The line of Thor's jaw tightened, then he dropped his head and sighed. 'You have one of the most powerful artefacts in the universe on you and it's useless to us. Perfect.'

'Life, I find, is not without a sense of irony.'

'This isn't the time for levity,' Thor replied. 'Let's go.'

'Where?'

Thor didn't bother to answer. He simply strode out, leaving Loki to trail after him. It turned out, Thor's aim was the bridge of the Statesman, where Banner and the Valkyrie were presently in the middle of a heated exchange.

She cut herself off halfway through a sentence and grinned. 'You made it back! You had us worried.'

Loki snapped into action before Thor had a chance to respond. 'Banner, did you do as you were told? Launch the escape pods now.'

'Really? They are heading away from us,' Banner said.

'That won't last.'

Brunnhilde frowned. 'Thor?'

Thor's attention, however, was on the retreating shape of the Sanctuary. He walked over to the windows and cocked his head. 'You see there?'

He pointed into the distance and Loki had to shuffle over to stand beside him before he understood what Thor had spotted. While they had flown back to the Statesman, a new ship had joined the five fighters surveying the wreckage of the alter-ego's ship. This one was larger than the fighters — a cruiser modified to have nets and grappling hooks so it could collect post-battle debris.

'How long do we have?' Thor asked, but rather than wait for Loki's response, he went on, 'There's no sense in wasting time with this. Announce the evacuation.'

Her frown deepening, the Valkyrie pressed a couple of buttons on the control panel.

Three long, high-pitched booms rang through the ship, then a robotic voice took over, 'ATTENTION ALL PERSONNEL. EVACUATION ORDER ISSUED. PROCEED TO YOUR DESIGNATED EVACUATION POINT. ATTENTION ALL PERSONNEL. EVACUATION ORDER ISSUED. DEPLOY ALL ESCAPE PODS.'

'What's the capacity of those escape pods?' Thor asked, almost shouting to make himself heard over the alarm system.

'We crammed in as many as possible before it became dangerous.' Banner ran his hand through his hair and sighed. 'About a third of the ship.'

'A third? That's all?'

Banner grimaced. 'That's all.'

In the uncomfortable silence that followed, Brunnhilde flicked something on the control panel and muted the booms of the evacuation order.

'I think people got the gist of that,' she said, motioning towards the control panel screen. They couldn't see the escape pods from the windows of the bridge, but the onboard computer indicated that pods number one, four and five had already departed.

'Two thousand people…' Thor muttered. 'Any Sakaarians left onboard?'

'Most of them,' Brunnhilde replied.

Thor had no more questions after that. His face contorted in frustration, he turned to watch the ship's computer count off the escape pods until, one by one, all nine of them slipped away from the Statesman. Although he seemed passive, Loki knew his brother's mind was at work, trying to work out the path out of their current predicament. But now that Thor understood that neither the Tesseract nor the escape pods could save them all, there were no options remaining. It was only a matter of time until Thor realised this.

While Loki waited for his brother to come to terms with the Statesman's inevitable fate, he idly wondered how many more they would have been able to fit in the tenth pod, which Loki and Thor had thoughtlessly abandoned back on the Sanctuary.

As the last escape pod departed the Statesman, the doors to the bridge slid open.

'Thor! So you are here,' Brandr said. 'Everyone was saying you were gone.'

'What are you doing here?' Loki asked. 'Why weren't you on any of the pods? Surely they would've had the sense to cram in as many children as they could.'

'Master Arnfinn wanted his books to be placed on the escape pods, so I went to get them.' Brandr nodded to the stack of books in his hands. 'Then I wanted to find you and Thor, so I—'

Loki groaned. 'Idiot child.'

He glanced to his brother, then to Banner and the Valkyrie. None of them wanted to meet Brandr's eye and the atmosphere in the room, already grim earlier, plummeted altogether. It was one thing to know the escape pods had left behind the majority of the people aboard the Statesman, it was another entirely to see exactly who had remained behind.

'What's happening?' The dark mood of the others present did not escape Brandr. His smile faded and his words became shaky. 'Why are we evacuating?'

'Brandr, be quiet for a moment,' Thor said, leaning forward so he could have a better vantage of Thanos' ships. He slammed his fist into the control panel next to him. 'This is it.'

Gritting his teeth, he pointed to the cruiser sent to sift through the remnants of the fighter. It had turned and now headed back towards the Sanctuary. Loki's heart skipped a beat, then began thumping so violently he was certain everyone in the room could hear it. The cruiser must have found what remained of the alter-ego's body and realised that it was little more than a hologram.

And the remaining fighters, were they turning too? Loki tilted his head to the side and felt his hands tremble. Yes, they had turned towards the Statesman. Worse yet, Loki could just make out the surviving gates of the Sanctuary. One by one, they slid open and more ships — fighters and troop carriers — poured out.

'Loki, get back to the fighter and leave. Right now,' Thor ordered. 'Take Brandr with you. There was a third seat, wasn't there?'

'The jump seat, yes,' Loki replied.

Thor threw Brandr an unconvincing smile, then gestured towards Banner. 'Bruce, go with them too. Please.'

'Why?' Banner said.

'My brother has an infinity stone on him; it's vital Thanos does not get his hands on it. When you get to Midgard, you need to persuade whoever is currently in charge to listen to Loki instead of immediately declaring him a threat. He has information Midgardians must know.'

Loki grabbed Thor by the strap of his vambrace and pulled his brother towards him. 'There are only three seats on that fighter. What are you playing at?' he hissed, trying to keep the conversation solely between the two of them. 'I didn't save your skin from Thanos for you to martyr yourself here.'

'Did I ask you to save me?'

'Whether it's in an hour or in a day, Thanos' men _will_ take this ship.'

'The longer they're focused on the Statesman, the greater the chance both you and the escape pods have to reach Midgard,' Thor replied in a low tone and pulled his hand out of Loki's grasp. 'Don't stand around arguing with me about this. Go!'

Loki shook his head. Thor's mind was made up and judging by the silence of the others, no one would take Loki's side to argue against this suicidal strategy.

'Fine. Let's go,' he said.

At the threshold to the corridor, however, he couldn't control himself. He would've liked to convince himself that when the fighting turned sour, Thor would pummel his way through the enemy and commandeer one of the troop carriers. But he could see Thor's steely expression as he drew himself to full height and tightened the clasps of his armour. As long as anyone on the Statesman remained alive, Thor would not abandon his fight. If a captain's duty was to go down with his ship, a king's was to die with his people.

Loki paused and turned to his brother one last time. 'Thor, I am sorry for… all of this.'

'I know,' Thor replied.

Loki hesitated for a moment, waiting for Thor to say something more. But there was nothing more, at least not for him. Thor climbed into the pilot's chair and turned on the ship-wide broadcast system.

He couldn't bear to listen to Thor's words to those still remaining on the Statesman. He focused instead on making it back to the fighter as quickly as he could, until a new thought struck him. Loki didn't have the time or the equipment to set up a portal through the Tesseract, but he did have one more trick in him. Just enough to give the escape pods a chance.

'Banner, I need a few minutes,' he said, coming to a stop in the middle of a corridor.

'We don't have time to mess around.'

Loki gritted his teeth. 'This isn't… I'm not going to muck around with you, I can't afford to. Thor didn't send you off with me just because you can negotiate for my life should we actually make it to your accursed planet. He knows your lovely other half, the green one, can keep me in check. Got it?'

'Fine.' Banner replied, as always, uneasy when the monster sleeping within him was mentioned. He pulled Brandr back and positioned himself between Loki and the boy. 'What are we doing?'

'You two? Nothing, just wait. I need a few minutes.'

Loki would have liked to do this back in the room Thor and he shared. Their flimsy furniture and unmade beds would have made a poetic backdrop. Plus, he wouldn't have to suffer Banner and Brandr staring at him while he worked. But he didn't dare to linger more than he absolutely had to, so this bare, unremarkable section of a service corridor would suffice.

He chose a random spot by the wall and began his incantation. Soon the air shimmered with tendrils of golden light that flitted about each other. It was slow and painstaking work to mould the tendrils into the right shapes, not helped by Banner's repeated protestations that they were running out of time, but he managed it in the end. The tendrils swelled in size and finally solidified into a figure bearing Loki's face and wearing Loki's clothes.

 _If only I had the chance to create a facsimile of this quality to go aboard that fighter. Or if_ _…_

 _There were so many missed chances in this entire fiasco._

'Do you think it passes for me?' Loki said.

Banner offered him a lop-sided grin. 'Hair isn't greasy enough.'

Loki let the jab go unanswered, his mind too preoccupied with the finishing touches. He added several hidden pockets to the inside of his cloak — the first place Thanos would search in his attempt to locate the Tesseract, then added a few scrapes and bruises onto the face. Once satisfied that Thanos should take at least a couple of days to realise he had been tricked, Loki took a step back and surveyed his creation. The facsimile looked peaceful, its eyes closed and the corners of its mouth slightly turned up, as if it was lost in pleasant dreams. Loki pulled out a replica of his knife from the facsimile's belt, knelt down and slit its throat.

He jumped back to avoid the blood spray from the resulting wound and dropped the knife by the rapidly swelling pool of blood around the facsimile's unmoving form.

 _If I do ever end up slitting my throat, this is what I_ _'ll look like. Good to know._

'That will do,' he said. 'Time to go.'

Banner was all too eager to keep moving, but Brandr slunk back, his book collection pressed to his chest and his eyes transfixed on the grotesque scene Loki had created.

'It's not real, Brandr,' Banner said quietly.

A series of thuds resonated through the walls and the floor of the Statesman.

'They are here!' Loki said.

He paused only long enough to see Banner grab Brandr by the shoulder. Trusting that Banner would drag the boy along if he had to, Loki broke into a sprint.

'Brandr, get into the jump seat and get your seatbelt on. Banner, the co-pilot's seat,' Loki called out when they reached the fighter. 'There are two missiles left. If it comes to that, don't waste them.'

Loki himself slid into the pilot's seat, which Thor had previously occupied. The engines fired up smoothly and within twenty seconds the Statesman lay behind them. Pushing the throttle as far as he could, Loki was careful to keep the Statesman between the fighter and the ships sent out from the Sanctuary, hoping that the carrick's bulk would hide his departure from Thanos' men.

This strategy had a secondary advantage, which Loki had not anticipated — they were spared having to witness the devastation Thanos' ships inflicted upon the near-defenceless Statesman.


	10. Fanfare for the Common Man

A/N: The story will be returning to the regular point of view characters from the next chapter, but in this one, I thought it was time for something different. So far the story has been told through the eyes of the heroes, who get to make all the bold decisions and do all the cool stuff. I was keen to explore what it'd be like for the average Asgardian, who has pretty much zero agency in all of this.

* * *

Someone must have made a mistake. Although the escape pod raced away from the Statesman with as much speed as Scadi could coax out of the engines, the communications link between the Statesman and the pod remained open. Every sound from the Statesman's bridge was beamed into the speakers of Skadi's escape pod. She turned down the volume, not wanting to further upset the others on board, but she couldn't bring herself to turn off the link altogether.

And as she steered the pod away, she listened. There were Thor, Loki and a few other voices she didn't immediately recognise. Eventually, she realised one of them was Bruce Banner, the placid Midgardian, and the sole female voice was the Valkyrie. The unbroken voice of a boy seemed familiar too, but she couldn't quite place it.

Together their voices painted a sordid scene, but when the brothers' voices fell silent and the link crackled with interference, Skadi found herself disappointed.

She had loved the theatre all her life: the tragedy of hubris, the scandalous melodrama and the hero's last monologue, which left no member of the audience dry-eyed. The royal family of Asgard had always had something theatrical about their every move. Today it was no different.

There was Thor, his voice straining with barely contained fury, sending his brother away for Midgard's sake. Loki, meanwhile, attempted to make amends even as his tone made clear he expected no absolution. Listening to them, Skadi could imagine that all she could see around her was merely elaborate stage dressing and she was only watching another play.

The line crackled again as if someone searched for a different frequency, fell utterly silent, then Thor began to speak. 'Asgardians, dear friends from Sakaar, you will all have surmised by now that we are about to be under attack. It seems the enemies of Asgard are many of late and they would cast us down into obscurity.'

A solid lump formed in Skadi's throat. She didn't want to hear any of this. This was no play, there was no stage dressing. This was reality and although Thor did not say the words, the gravity of his tone made the situation self-evident. In his estimation — the king's estimation — the Statesman was already lost.

'Ma'am, can you turn the sound up?' said one of the older girls seated on the floor just behind the cockpit. She sat crossed-legged, an infant curled in her arms and her long braid spilling over her shoulder. 'I can't hear what he's saying and I'd like to know.'

The request took her by such surprise, that Skadi's reflexively pulled up the toggle that controlled the sound.

Thor's voice, grave, but as steady as a war drum, boomed through the cramped escaped pod as he concluded his speech. 'Gather what weapons you can and raise them. If this is to be the end of Asgard, we will make a last stand worthy of bard's songs for all the ages to come. Fear not. Doubt not. Tonight we shall all feast together and drink our fill in Valhalla.'

 _Fine words for a king to say. Pretty words even._

He had spoken like his father would have, like he addressed an army of a hundred thousand, all lined up in shining armour and hungry for glory.

But Skadi had been amidst the tumult that had broken out once they had been told to move to the escape pods. She had been among the hundreds still queueing up to receive their day's rations. No one had known what the threat was or what they ought to be doing, but everyone sensed disaster looming. They corralled all the children into the escape pods, then someone remembered the cattle prods and the fireworks sitting idle in the Statesman's storerooms. While the Sakaarians distributed the cattle prods to the unarmed, others attempted to set up the fireworks as traps in the outer corridors.

They had no armour, shining or otherwise. The only thing they hungered for was food.

Amid the commotion, Arnfinn had kissed her on the forehead and brought out his sword. It had been his father's sword once. The weapon was old-fashioned in design, although well-maintained. But in all the long years of his life, Arnfinn had never raised it in battle. Skadi didn't know if he still remembered how to wield it. He had hired tutors to teach their children sword-play rather than attempt instruction himself.

 _The children._

That way lay pain. Skadi bit down on her lip as she tried to direct her thoughts to something else, but there was no halting the torrent of memories. Arvid, Agmundr, Asger — her dear sons. All three of them gone. Agmundr's wife and daughter. Even Asger's ever-cheerful Njala, whom he had planned to marry next spring. All of them were ash and dust, soon to be swept away by the cold, cosmic winds that roared through the desolate hollows of the universe.

Now Arnfinn too was gone. What hope she had held for some last minute deliverance died when the booms of ordnance striking the Statesman began and the screams of the victims followed. The sound carried over the still open line was chaos, yet at the same time there was a brilliant clarity to it — these were the howling cries of a dying people.

'Turn that off!' someone shouted.

Skadi turned around and saw that a red-haired woman had climbed to her feet. She was attempting to make her way to Skadi without stepping on anyone's hands or feet, but the children in the front half of the escape pod were packed too tightly. It was as if they were trying to find comfort in one other's physical proximity. The woman halted and pressed her hands together.

'Turn that off. The children don't need to hear this,' she said.

'I rather hear it and know how it ended,' the girl who had spoken to Skadi earlier replied.

The children didn't need to be witness to an argument about this either. Skadi motioned for both of them to wait, then adjusted the sound until it could only be heard in the immediate vicinity of the pilot's chair.

'Move closer if you want to listen,' she said.

The girl's face sunk. 'It's not that I want to…'

Although the girl didn't finish her words, Skadi understood. She too had someone she had left behind on that ship.

'Come, boys and girls, why don't we keep ourselves busy while we are flying?' the red-woman said in a gentle tone. 'How about a song? Ilva, do you know any songs?'

The girl, who Skadi assumed was Ilva, offered a hesitant reply. 'Yes?'

'That's good. Do you know the Counting Sog? Do you remember how it starts? _One is for the World Tree, standing straight and tall, One is Earth our mother, who gives food for all_ _._ _Nine Worlds upon the Tree abide,  
Nine by nine the Valkyries ride._'

The woman had a strong, pleasant voice and several of the children soon joined her. Every Midgardian over the age of three knew at least the opening verses of the song. Skadi, however, was not in the mood for singing.

' _Three is for the High One, the Next High and the Third,  
Three are the holy Nornir, who ward the well of Wyrd,  
Nine Worlds upon the Tree abide,  
Nine by nine the Valkyries ride_,' the children sang, although the red-haired woman's voice soared over them all.

But this was not the time for singing, unless the song of choice was a dirge. Even the woman's voice soon began to waver and after a few more verses the singing petered out altogether.

The open communications link, on the other hand, continued beaming out sound. As she listened, Skadi made sure to keep the ship steady. Before Arnfinn had secured several commissions to tutor the children of the nobility and they became wealthy enough to allow Skadi to dedicate her days to her children and her gardens, she had piloted patrol cruisers through the mountains of Asgard. These credentials had got her aboard this pod; she was the only woman here not clinging to a small child. Despite the long years gone-by since those days, she remembered full-well how to steer a ship.

Yet, as the echoes of explosions aboard the Statesman petered out and the screaming ended, Skadi's hands trembled, threatening to send the escape pod drifting askew.

Hours passed. Nothing more came from the Statesman.

When her eyes shed all the water they had to give, Skadi turned off the link and for the first time, dared to really look behind her. Being in the pilot's chair provided her with a small amount of personal space. Everyone else, however, lacked such luxury. They were all cramped together on the bare floor — dozens of children and a few women clutching their ashen-faced off-spring. She couldn't even see the red-haired singer from earlier among this crush of people.

They had brought nothing with them, of course. Supplies had been out of the question, they had known how many they were leaving behind. As it was, the escape pod carried twice the weight it had been designed for. The engines struggled, Skadi ran them to capacity, but the speed they generated was wanting. The filtration system too was over-loaded. The pod could have substituted for a sauna, if the humid air had not been befouled by the stench of soiled nappies.

The older children and the women kept silent. But the younger children did not understand why they were forced to endure the discomfort of soiled undergarments and desperate for something to eat. They cried and howled.

'Are we still heading for Midgard?' asked the girl, pulling the end of her braid out of the hands of the infant fussing in her arms. Her face was tear-streaked and her voice was raspy.

Skadi nodded and smiled. 'We are. What's your name, child?'

'Eydis,' the girl replied. 'This one is Eimer. I'm sorry he's cranky, he's hungry.'

'Why don't you hand him to me for a little while, you could use a break.'

Eydis hesitated for a moment, then carefully handed the infant to Skadi, who bounced him on her knee a few times. The boy's soft crying continued without a pause, he didn't even seem to notice he was now in the arms of a stranger.

'He's been like this for days,' Eydis said. 'Not a moment's sleep for him or for me. My milk dried up and he's too young for what we had back on the ship. It made him sick when I tried it.'

She was more surprised to realise Eimer was Eydys' child than that she had trouble feeding an infant. The food they had been eating the past weeks was not the appropriate diet for any nursing mother. But Eydis looked so young, Skadi would have guessed Eimer was merely her younger sibling.

'We'll find something for him on Midgard,' Skadi replied, glancing to the window of the escape pod where only the bright ball of this system's yellow sun and a few comets were visible.

Eydis attempted a smile, but didn't quite manage it. 'Will there be anything? I don't know much about Midgard.'

'Nor do I, I guess.' Skadi coughed and wished there was even a half a cup of water on board. Her throat felt raw, as if she had swallowed half a pint of sand for breakfast. 'My husband, though, is… Well, he told me once that Midgard is bigger than Asgard is. In some places the clime is much like Asgard, elsewhere it's as cold as Jotunheim, but there are places too that burn with the heat of Muspelheim.'

Asgard was, not is, Skadi reminded herself. Just as Arnfin now only existed in the past tense. She pulled the still-squirming Eimer closer to her, trying to distract herself from the lump once again solidifying in her throat and the burning in her eyes.

'I heard once that Midgard is all blue. Water is everywhere, but most of it is too salty to drink,' Eydis replied, and after a pause, added, 'I hope that's not true.'

'We'll find out soon enough,' Skadi replied.

Eydis smiled wryly and looked away. 'Perhaps.'

Skadi had no reply to that and no energy to think of anything to cheer up Eydis. If only she were a hero out of the heroic dramas or the old sagas she would have had something to say. The great hero in her favourite tales always had a rousing speech for his comrades. But Skadi was an ordinary widow, who had been caught up in the struggles of beings greater than her and made homeless for reasons she still didn't understand.

* * *

A/N: I have no talent for poetry, so the song sung in this chapter is 'The Valkyries' Counting Song' by Diana L. Paxson. I found it on: .


	11. King of Nothing

Curled up on the floor at the back of the fighter, Bruce gritted his teeth. He had abandoned the co-pilot's chair in favour of the floor, hoping to get at least an hour or two of rest. But there was no way he could sleep; his stomach cramped with hunger pains. Arguing that they needed to stay as far away from Thanos as they could, Loki had set the fighter on an inefficient arc that skirted the edges of the Solar System. The decision had kept them safe thus far, but it had tripled the length of their journey. Bruce wasn't certain how long they had been on the fighter now, the units of time the fighter's onboard computer provided left him only more confused, but two days had to have passed since he had last eaten or slept.

When the waves of pain temporarily let up, he rolled onto his back and stared at the dull grey of the fighter's roof. Although they spoke softly, the fighter was small, he could hear Loki and Brandr talking up at the front.

'A question for you,' Loki was saying. 'Did Arnfinn really send you off after the books?'

'Not as such,' Brandr replied with a wince.

'I thought so. Arnfinn was my tutor once too, from what I know of the man, it didn't seem like something he'd do. Then why did you run off instead of heading to the escape pods?'

'I wanted to find you and Thor. I thought… I don't know, I don't remember what I was thinking. But, do you think Thor's all right?'

Silence lingered. Bruce could just about picture the scene — Brandr sulking in the co-pilot's chair and Loki working over-time to restrain himself from snapping at Brandr. The boy had already asked this twice (only phrasing the question slightly differently) and both times Loki had told him that he didn't know. There was a cruelty to bringing up Thor again. Despite their fighting and bickering, no one who spent even a few hours with the brother could miss the affection they held for each other.

Perhaps realising that he wouldn't get the answer he wanted out of Loki, Brandr ventured to a different topic. 'How come we were attacked? What did they want?'

A chair creaked as someone shifted their weight, then Loki sighed.

'I am Jotun, you know that, right?' he asked.

Careful not to make noise and alert Loki to the fact that he had an eavesdropper, Bruce propped himself up on his elbows. He had been aware there was a back-story to Loki's parentage. Thor had told the Avengers long ago that his brother was adopted, but he had refrained from sharing the details. Back then Bruce hadn't dwelled on it — every family had its secrets. However, if Loki's parentage had something to do with their present situation, Bruce thought he had a right to know.

Brandr sucked on his lip. 'I know. Was it them that —'

'No. It's just something you need to know for all of this to make sense,' Loki replied. 'I was furious when I found out the truth about my parentage. So furious, in fact, I was ready to destroy Jotunheim, but Thor and the All-father thwarted my plans.'

'And you fell off the Bifrost when it broke. I remember hearing the stories.'

'I chose to fall. Sometimes death seems the easier path to take.'

A blaring alarm cut off Loki's next words.

Bruce scrambled up and rushed over to the cockpit. 'What's going on?'

'Low fuel warning.' Loki smiled wryly. 'I've been expecting it for a while. Fighters are designed for short-range sorties and mid-air refuelling, so there was never going to be enough fuel in the tanks to get us all the way to Midgard. I'm going to power down the engines and leave just the support systems running. We should save some fuel for our entry into the Midgardian atmosphere.'

'Wouldn't that just leave us drifting?'

'Sure. But our trajectory is correct, at least we'll be drifting in the right direction.'

Loki made no pretence of being interested in Bruce's opinion on his plan and began powering down the engines. He was gentle with the throttle, sliding it back slowly until the rumble of the engines became a hum and then petered out altogether. Bruce glanced to the cockpit windows. Past the deep gouges in the glass, he saw only empty space.

 _Christ, how much longer?_

Brandr slid off the chair and offered it to Banner, who happily collapsed into it. Getting up onto his feet left him lightheaded and he didn't feel like he had the energy to stay upright for long. It was only a couple seconds later that his conscience caught up to him — Brandr probably felt no better. However, the boy had propped himself up against the back of Bruce's chair, leaning his chin on the headrest. He seemed comfortable enough.

'Loki's telling me about who attacked us,' Brandr said.

Bruce considered his options. What Loki had been telling Brandr was candid, he wasn't certain Loki would be willing to be as open with Bruce. On the other hand, there was precious little else to do while they were stuck on this ship except talk.

'I think I'd like to hear all about that myself,' Bruce said.

Loki threw him a dark look, then tilted his head back until he was staring at the top of the cockpit. 'I suppose there is no reason to keep the story to myself anymore,' he said. 'After I fell, I, well, I kept falling. No idea how long, though it felt like decades. I lost consciousness after a while and I woke up on the outskirts of the Nova Empire. Out there imperial control is seldom to be found; the local militias rule. I was so weak by then the warding hiding my true features failed and they took me for an odd-looking Kree, with whom they had been at war for centuries. They… Let's just say, I shed no tears for them when one of Thanos' lieutenants cut them down to a man.'

'Thanos is Kree then?'

'No, the Mad Titan is something far more powerful than any Kree. But he would rather others do the work for him. When his lieutenant found me and recognised me as Jotun, rather than Kree, he took pity on me. But he also saw that his master could find a use for me. Thanos likes nothing more than to exploit a personal rivalry to his advantage. So he made me an offer — the Tesseract, or rather the infinity stone within it, in exchange for Midgard.

Since Loki had begun his tale, his words had near tumbled out as if he had longed to share his story with someone for years, but now he hesitated and when he did begin speaking again, he looked flustered. 'For what it's worth, I didn't accept. Not at first. But he knows how to be persuasive. And from Midgard, I thought, I could conquer all the Nine Realms. Except that worked out rather badly.'

Bruce shook his head. Saying that the invasion attempt ended rather badly was such a cheap attempt to gloss over Loki's colossal failure that day. But what about the rest of it? SHIELD agents had spent days trying to get Loki to talk and they had gotten little more than repeated proclamations of 'I am burdened with glorious purpose'. It was quite a different tale he was telling today. How likely was it that this version of events was the truth?

'You tried to conquer my planet as an up yours move to your father and Thor. Good to know,' Bruce said. True or not, he might as well play along for the moment.

Loki snorted. 'What did you think I did it for? Earth's pristine air?'

'With you, who knows. Maybe you took offence at how Norse mythology portrayed you,' Banner replied. 'So I assume you realised Thanos wouldn't be happy you reneged on your side of the deal.'

'Or I didn't just renege. I lost the one infinity stone he had, thus instead of having two in his possession, he had none. Faking my death seemed the most prudent move. And it worked out well until Thor returned.'

'You didn't have to pretend to be your father,' Bruce said, rubbing his hands over arms. The temperature in the ship had already been frigid before, but now that the engines were off, it had dropped further and goosebumps had proliferated over every exposed inch of Bruce's skin.

'Thor returned the Tesseract to Asgard, then decided to go off adventuring himself. I couldn't leave it unprotected.'

'You could've told your father,' Brandr protested.

'The All-father wouldn't have listened. He would have thrown me back into a cage, locked me behind every lock in Asgard and melted down the keys.' Loki coughed and made a face. His voice had grown increasingly hoarse over the course of his story, so Bruce assumed that like he, Loki was starting to suffer feel the effects of dehydration. 'Then, once Thor returned and exposed me, it was only ever a matter of time until Thanos found me. True, once Asgard was gone and I had the Tesseract, I thought I could beg my way into Thanos' mercy by exchanging the Tesseract and what I know of the other infinity stones. That wasn't enough — he wanted Thor and I couldn't agree to that.'

Bruce wasn't sure how he ought to respond. Out of this entire story, there was only one fact he felt certain of — fear of losing Thor had made Loki flinch away from a deal with Thanos. But the results of that choice had been catastrophic. It hardly felt appropriate to commend Loki on his fraternal loyalty. At the same time, he couldn't condemn it either.

 _What an infernal mess this is._

'Did Thor think Thanos would threaten Earth?' he asked.

'Thor and I saw the inside of his ship — the Sanctuary hosts Thanos' invasion fleet. It should reach Midgard not long after us. A ship that size moves slowly, but it will reach its destination.'

The words left Bruce breathless. If the story Loki had spun for him and Brandr was true, Earth was under serious threat and likely unaware. Thor had realised this and did the only thing he could think of — he sent his brother to help defend the planet.

Bruce glanced back at Brandr, who was still clinging to the back of the co-pilot's chair. 'Brandr, you look like you're swaying on your feet,' he said. 'Why don't you have a nap?'

'It's too cold to sleep,' Brandr replied.

Loki clicked his fingers and a wave of hot air rolled through the ship.

Brandr grinned. 'That's so nice. Why can't it always be this warm? Can you teach me that?'

'One day,' Loki replied. 'Go lie down. He's right, you could use some rest.'

The boy nodded — this wasn't the first time Thor or Loki had nudged him out of a sensitive conversation — and shuffled over to the back of the ship. The fighter lacked many basic comforts, but they had managed to pull off the back of the jump seat. It was a tolerable substitute for a pillow.

'If what you say is correct, I'm not sure where to begin.'

Loki fiddled with the straps of his seat belt. 'You could say nothing at all.'

'Would that I could. Do you still have the Tesseract hidden on you?' Bruce said. When Loki nodded, he went on. 'There wasn't any way you could've used it?'

'The moment I use it, Thanos will be able to trace its location. Nor is it a simple object to use. There's preparation required and cooperation on both sides is immensely helpful. I expect you remember the set up I needed Selvig to construct in New York before I could open the portal for the Chitauri.'

'Vaguely.'

Loki's frown morphed into a callous grin. 'That's right. It was the green one who was there.'

'Yes, and Stark showed the footage of exactly how that went for you,' Bruce replied. 'Look, I don't know how much Thor told you about what he and I discussed for when the Statesman got to Earth. Refugees are not always well received on —'

'There is a convention protecting the rights of refugees, isn't there?'

'Yes, there is.' Bruce raised an eyebrow. 'However, as some enterprising politician is bound to point out, it wasn't written with aliens in minds. The Tesseract and your knowledge of Thanos is an opportunity you should take. With Thor gone, you are the only remaining member of the royal family, aren't you? You have a responsibility to do as the rightful king of Asgard.'

'I'm the rightful king of no one and nothing,' Loki snapped. He pursed his lips, then seemed to force himself to relax the tight line of his shoulders. 'Did you find any water back there?'

The change in topic left Bruce wishing he had Hulk's strength and could pummel sense into Loki. Certainly, words were not going to be much use, the stiff line of Loki's jaw made that clear.

Bruce sighed. 'There's a jerry can back there. I think it's water, but it smelled foul. I'm not sure it's drinkable'.

'Probably not then,' Loki said.

He undid his seatbelt and climbed out of his seat, then pulled off his cloak. Offering no explanation, he strode past Bruce.

A few moments later, Bruce heard Loki speak. 'Hey, are you still awake, Brandr? Have my cloak. The heat will dissipate in the next ten minutes or so, I'm afraid. I've never been especially good at that spell and since the cold rarely bothers me, I never made the effort to practise.'

'Thank you,' Brandr muttered in reply.

Loki's expression was unreadable as he returned to his seat, while Bruce couldn't quite contain his amusement. 'I didn't think you'd enjoy the company of children.'

'I don't know how it is on Midgard, but where I was raised, it's considered bad manners to be mean to orphans,' Loki replied.


	12. Where There's a Will, There's a Way

Sometimes waking up was a mistake.

Though Brunnhilde had yet to move so much as her little finger, she felt the pain. Her head throbbed, just about every joint ached, her muscles had knotted with overuse and along the left side of her back was a solid bruise from her shoulder blade down to her hip. She sighed. She had never been one to drift in and out of consciousness; either she was awake or she was not. Unfortunately, at the present, it was the former.

Not eager to move before she had to, she tried to take stock. She lay on a bare floor, which alone would have gone a long way to explaining the soreness of her body. There were others around her, their clothes rustled as they moved and although she couldn't make out the words, they were talking softly among themselves. Further away, something dripped across metal piping. The air in the room had a stale humidity with an undercurrent of something acidic. A spaceship then. But she couldn't narrow it down any further than that. The lower decks of half the spaceships in the universe smelled like this.

There was no escaping it any longer. Brunnhilde opened her eyes and found herself staring up at grimy ceiling adorned with a single, flickering light. She flinched away and immediately regretted it. The light had been too bright, yes, but when she flinched, half her face burned with pain.

Fractured cheekbone, she guessed. Maybe an eye socket fracture too.

'Brunnhilde?' came Korg's voice, as placid and good-natured as ever. 'How are you feeling? Is there anything I can do?'

'I don't think so,' she replied.

She rolled to the side and with a great deal of cursing, pushed herself to her feet. There was blood on her clothes, but she didn't think it was her own. Her muscles and joints protested against over-exertion and blunt force trauma; there was no sign of stab wounds or blast injuries. Once she felt steady on her feet, Brunnhilde palpated her face. It was swollen, likely completely discoloured.

At least she still had both her eyes.

'What are we going to do now?' someone asked.

Brunnhilde glanced around and not for the first time, regretted her decision to leave Sakaar. First, she had exchanged the peace of her liquor-soaked apartment for the over-crowded Statesman. That had been bad enough, especially when the alcohol she had found stashed among the maintenance equipment had run out. Now she had traded the Statesman for a dank cell intended for ten people at most, but holding double that number.

'This is Thanos' ship, I take it,' she said.

'They call it the Sanctuary,' replied Sigundur, one of the very few of the royal guard to have survived Ragnarok. He sat with his back pressed against the thick bars that formed one wall of the cell and seemed to have shrunk within himself. Brunnhilde found herself sympathising with him — when you were the only warrior to survive a rout, everyone looked askance at you.

'How many did they bring over here?' she asked.

'It's hard to say,' Sigundur replied. 'When they hauled me down here, we passed four other cells filled with Asgardians. Perhaps there are more I didn't see.'

She frowned. Her memories of the fighting were fragmented, probably the result of the lump she felt on the back of her head. She didn't remember how she had ended up unconscious, but she remembered well-enough the armoured men striding down the corridors and the resonating booms of explosions as the Statesman's hull was blown apart. It took years to train a warrior, Brunnhilde's few lessons were never going to make a difference. And so, it had been a bloodbath. Thanos' men cut down everyone in their path; others had simply been blown out to space once the Statesman itself had begun to disintegrate.

'Do you know what happened to the king and the prince?' Sigundur asked.

She was about to shake her head, then thought better of it. 'Last I saw of the king, ' she said, 'he had decided to head down to the lower levels while I remained close to the bridge. Loki had…I don't know what happened to the prince.'

 _Fuck Loki._

 _In fact, fuck all of Odin_ _'s progeny. Wherever they tread, death follows._

It was Loki, whom Thanos sought. That was the sole reason any of them were still breathing — why Thanos would want survivors from the Statesman kept alive. A prisoner could have valuable information or, through the right methodology, could be used as emotional leverage to extract information from someone else.

There had been five people on the bridge of the Statesman. Loki, Bruce and the kid were gone, hopefully well on their way to Midgard by now.

'Thor is definitely not in the other cells?' she asked.

A woman curled up on the floor behind Korg piped in. 'I heard them talking. They think he fled when he realised he was on the losing side or even before the battle even began.'

Brunnhilde knew for a fact that neither conjecture was true. She had stood beside him both as he spoke to people aboard the Statesman before the battle began and as he tore through a squadron of Thanos' soldiers. He had known from the first moment that they would be overrun and he hadn't fled. He wouldn't have done so later either — that was not his nature. And if Thor hadn't run and he wasn't among the captured, then he would have been among those blown out of the disintegrating ship. He was probably floating in the middle of nowhere right now.

Her heart doubled its pace as Brunnhilde understood the precariousness of her position. If Thanos still searched for Loki, she was the only one left who knew where he had been headed. And while the Asgardians had been oblivious of the events transpiring in the universe beyond the Nine Realms, rumours of the Mad Titan had reached Sakaar. She was not eager to find out how many of them were true.

She stepped around the other occupants of the cell and made her way over to Sigundur. Since he rested his back against the bars, she had been fairly confident already, but she wanted to be certain. Tentatively, she slid her hand between the bars. No force-field sent her flying backwards, no alarm sounded. She reached further out until she felt cold air blown out of a ventilation shaft further up the corridor run over her fingers. Still nothing.

 _It could be worse._

Ignoring Korg's attempts to soothe the more distraught of their cellmates, she withdrew her hand and pressed her head against the bars. The distance between them was too narrow for her to fit her head through, but if she had the right angle, she could still peer down the corridor and make out the bars of the neighbouring cells. However, that helped her little. She couldn't see who was being held inside these cells or anything further up the corridor.

'How many guards are there?' she asked.

Sigundur climbed to his feet and wrapped his hands around the bars. 'More than enough. This ship isn't short on manpower.'

The warning in his tone was unmissable, leaving Brunnhilde to wonder if, despite the large age-gap between them, they had been taught out of the same textbook. Certainly, when she had been young, there had been an accepted philosophy to the art of escape from an enemy camp. The fewer guards there were, the easier the task of getting out of your cell. The smaller the group of escapees, the greater the chance of making it out alive. Sigundur's expression made it clear that he was unimpressed with their odds of success.

And they were low, Brunnhilde wasn't about to deny that. But, on the other hand, Thor and Loki had made it off this same ship alive. It wasn't impossible.

'What would you have us do? Sit here until we rot or perhaps, until we are so desperate we would willingly join his army?' she said quietly, so only Sigundur could her words.

'I said nothing of that sort,' Sigundur replied. 'I may be tired of fighting battles we cannot win, but I still have my honour and I know my duty.'

Brunnhilde nodded. 'Good. Then we understand each other.'

'I hope that is so.' He slid his hand over to the door of the cell and tapped his blood-stained fingers across the locking mechanism. 'I watched the guards as their brought in people into the cell. It's a two-step system. They have a keycard they slide into the lock, then they put in a code.'

That was a good start, but it raised more questions than it answered. Was the code unique to each keycard? Was the code just a code or did the keypad double as a scanner that needed the right biometric identification? In her life, Brunnhilde had come across all sorts of mechanisms designed to keep prisoners where their captors wanted them. And if they did escape the confines of the cell, where were they to head? She knew nothing about the layout of the Sanctuary.

Patience and perseverance would win the day, she told herself. They had a lot of thinking to do before they chose their moment to strike.

'Korg,' she said, turning around to face the crowded cell once more. 'I think it may be time to start preparing for another revolution.'


	13. When Good Men Do Nothing

A/N: Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, everyone! Whether you are surrounded by snow or trying not to get too sunburnt on the beach, I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays!

* * *

Loki brought up the jerry can and tilted it until water began to pour out. After the first mouthful, he began coughing and pulled the canister away. The water tasted rancid and had a slimy texture to it. Maybe there were species somewhere in the universe who would consider this water potable, but Loki didn't belong to any of them.

He leaned against the wall of the fighter and tried to make sense of the aftertaste the water had left in his mouth. Thanos recruited from just about everywhere, who knew, perhaps the water was deliberately flavoured like this and considered the drink of choice on some obscure world. Or perhaps the jerry can merely held engine drippings left over from the last round of maintenance.

Although he was thoroughly dehydrated, he decided the jerry can wasn't worth the gamble. Already getting up from his seat had sent his head spinning, he didn't need to poison himself as well. He pushed the canister back onto its place, then straightened the pile of books Brandr had stacked at the back of the fighter.

'Is Brandr still sleeping?' Banner asked as Loki climbed back into the pilot's chair.

'Or at least pretending to,' Loki replied.

'He's lucky he's small enough to sprawl out properly back there.'

'It was good fortune for him that this fighter had a jump seat for him at all.' Loki frowned. 'But if Brandr is fortunate, Midgard is not.'

Banner raised an eyebrow. 'What do you mean?'

'Most fighters only require a crew of two. The three-seater variety usually have blaster cannons mounted on them, which require a third crew member to operate. This one is missing the cannon and the other fighter I used didn't have one either. My guess is the fleet commander knows these cannons perform poorly in denser atmospheres, such as that of your planet, and ordered them removed rather than risk losing his fleet to malfunctioning, combustion-prone equipment.'

'So he knows how to do his job. That's…'

Banner rose from his seat and leaned over Loki's shoulder. He grinned with an unrestrained joy that rarely graced the face of anyone over the age of ten. Loki followed the line of his gaze and at once, he understood. Out of the murk of open space, you could now make out a small planet — pale blue and speckled with white. Midgard, at last, was within their sights.

'Thank God,' Banner muttered. 'I wasn't sure we'd ever make it here.'

Loki longed to share in Banner's sense of relief, but instead, he scanned the surrounding space for spaceships. The Sanctuary was a mounting base, not a warship in itself, so it moved about as fast as a space station. But the route Loki had set the fighter on had been a circuitous one, Thanos couldn't be far away.

'Don't get excited prematurely, Banner. We are not there yet. Besides, it's unlikely you'll have a pleasant time when we do,' he said.

Banner tore his eyes from the view out the fighter's gouged cockpit window and turned to Loki. 'What's the story with these proclamations of doom? Is this a lead-in to trying to persuade me to run off with you?'

'Yes, Banner, I want us to run off together, get hitched in Vegas and then sail off into the sunset drinking sambuca,' Loki replied.

In fact, Loki couldn't wait until he could ditch Banner. He wasn't sure whether Thor had done this intentionally or not, but in sending Banner with Loki, his brother had severely constrained Loki's range of options. Loki couldn't incapacitate Banner without risking unleashing the Hulk, which was not a prospect he relished while they were on a ship barely large enough for three people.

Once they were on Midgard, however, his options would broaden. He would find a way to make himself scarce. There were portals on Midgard that led to other realms and from there he could keep running. He and Brandr would have to find new names and faces, of course, but they would find a safe place eventually.

'Sambuca? Is that seriously your drink of choice?' Banner asked after a momentary silence.

Loki snorted. 'That's what you're going to question? Out of everything —'

'I'm trying to ignore the fact you just proposed to me,' Banner replied, then shrugged. 'A drink would be good actually and not even a full one. I haven't eaten in days, I bet half a beer would be enough to do me in.'

'Suddenly I understand the basis of your friendship with the Valkyrie.'

Banner's face slackened, all humour fleeing. 'Do you think she could've made it out?'

'No.'

Although Loki hadn't meant his answer to sound spiteful, Banner looked as if he had been slapped. He straightened up, then slunk back into his seat.

'If you are trying to warn me off fighting Thanos, Loki, I'm not interested. Perhaps we'll win, perhaps we won't,' he said. 'Either way, some things are worth fighting for.'

'And dying for, I suppose? If only you could make a survey of the dead and ask them if they still agree with you. But, of course, the dead don't get to speak.'

'I think of it in terms of probability,' Banner replied. 'As long as we resist then there's a chance we might win. Perhaps it's a very small one, but the odds remain better than zero. If we throw up our hands and surrender, then there's no gamble left — Thanos just wins. As they say, the only thing necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.'

'Nice speech. Was that one of the good captain's?' Loki asked as he flicked on the engines and began powering them up. Soon they would be approaching the zone of Midgard's gravitational pull; he would need to steer the fighter through the descent. 'Besides, are you trying to cast me as one of the good men in this suicidal gamble of yours? No, thank you. I like breathing.'

Banner produced an odd-sounding strangled laugh. 'The more time I spend around you, the clearer it becomes. You're not quite the villain you like to cast yourself to be.'

'Sure, Banner.'

'Come on, don't brush me off. After Thor left you on Sakaar, you could've gone anywhere you liked. You chose to return to Asgard and you made all the difference. Without the Statesman we wouldn't have saved anyone.'

'They weren't saved. They got a stay of execution and a few weeks of abhorrent food,' Loki said.

There was a long silence before Banner responded. 'Then make sure those deaths weren't in vain.'

 _Sweet mercy. He_ _'s insufferable._

Loki understood well enough what Banner wanted him to do, but to Loki's frustration, nothing he said in reply seemed to penetrate. Was it really so hard to understand that sometimes the odds were too poor to be worth the gamble?

Like Thor, Banner wanted him to hand over the Tesseract and side with the Midgardians in the coming war. But what was the use of that? He owed Midgard nothing and Asgard was already lost. Should any remaining Asgardians reach Midgard and then, by some miracle, survive the onslaught Thanos would unleash upon the planet, they would not want anything to do with Loki — he had played too large a role in Asgard's downfall. Even forgetting all that, there was Thanos. The Mad Titan would skin Loki alive should they ever meet again.

Frankly, Loki would be best served to hightail away from Midgard as fast as he could and since Tesseract had proven to be a liability, not an aid, he ought to throw it into the deepest chasm he could find.

'You're quiet all of a sudden,' Banner said. 'Cat got your tongue?'

'It's fruitless to argue with fools.'

'I'd rather be a fool than a coward.'

There's a difference,' Loki replied, 'between a coward and a realist.'

Chuckling, Loki crossed his arms and tapped his fingers along his tricep. Banner had infused his words with enough venom that even a simpleton wouldn't miss the insult. He didn't know, however, that Loki had heard jibes about his cowardice for centuries and those had come from men whose scorn meant far more than Banner's ever would. It hurt when someone you admired found you wanting. Banner, on the other hand, meant nothing — not worth mentioning at all. For all his talk of fighting evil against all the odds, he wasn't the one doing the fighting, was he? Banner couldn't even remember what the Hulk did when he took over Banner's body.

Still, the sooner they landed, the better. Loki could only listen to Banner for so long before he did something truly regrettable.

* * *

'Brandr, can you put your seat back together now?' Loki called out. 'You need to get into your seat and get your belt on.'

'I'll make sure he's set,' Banner replied.

While Banner made sure Brandr would not end up bouncing around the back of the fighter as they descended, Loki adjusted the controls. Midgard was no longer a distant planet. Its white caps at the poles seemed to glean in invitation and amid trails of white clouds, he could now see distinctly its deep blue oceans and the mottled green-brown of its continents. Loki thought he could even make out the eyes and the spiralling arms of twin typhoons, which swelled over the Pacific Ocean.

 _I had forgotten how majestic Midgard can look._

'We are good to go,' Banner said, returning to his seat and securing his own seat belt. 'Whenever you're ready.'

Loki was ready, no question about that.

He edged the nose of the fighter down and corrected the tilt on the flaps. At first, nothing seemed different, but after a couple of minutes, the rumble of the engines intensified — they had entered the outer reaches of Midgard's atmosphere.

The ship groaned, then began crackling. Loki switched through the screens of the onboard computer; that was not a sound this ship, or any other spaceship for that matter, should be making. The crackling grew louder and when he glanced up, Loki's breath hitched. The cockpit windows were cracking. Each gouge had become a spider web of fractures that were rapidly turning an ominous red colour.

Loki tore off his seatbelt and dove out of his seat just as the windows exploded, sending shards all through the fighter. Several struck Loki in the back and one in the back of his neck, but he ignored the pain. The fighter was still continuing its descent; the air rushing in through the destroyed windows roared. This would not be a smooth landing. The further he was away from the nose of the fighter, the better his chances of survival.

'Loki!' Brandr screamed.

His face and hands were peppered with shattered glass, however, that was not the cause of the panic in his voice. Loki glanced back to the front of the fighter and swore. There was a second roar now, more guttural and furious — Midgardians were too frail to survive the extremes of their own atmosphere without technical aids.

Clinging desperately to every solid object within reach, Loki clambered over to Brandr. 'It's… It'll be fine!' he managed to shout.

It was a lie as bold as any he had uttered in his life. The air tore into the ship with such force that Loki struggled to exhale. He had to turn away and press his face into the side of the ship. Taking a breath was no easier. He gasped, swallowing mouthfuls of thin air so frigid his lungs stung. Around them, the ship's interior, not designed to deal with this kind of stress, began to disintegrate. And what the elements couldn't destroy, the Hulk was busy dismantling.

As the fighter's back panel came off, Brandr threw out his arm and summoned the books, which were being flung around the back of the ship. He managed to grab three of them, but the others were swept out the back. Loki could see Brandr too was struggling to breathe, his chest heaved and his lips turned purple.

Loki pressed himself against the wall of the fighter and turned so he could see the front half of the ship, or what little of it still remained. He released one hand and tried the only spell he could think off. The howl of incoming air was met with a wall of wind that surged from Loki's hand and a moment later the chaos around them seemed to settle. The swirling, torn-off pieces of the ship slid to the floor and breathing became easier.

Loki groaned, it was as if he were holding up a three-tonne wall with his bare hands. He didn't have the energy to sustain this; they had maybe a minute before his spellwork collapsed. At least it wouldn't be like after the Bifrost, there was land beneath, they would have to land eventually.

 _Wait._

 _The missiles._

They were hardly going to go off after a shove or a short drop, but the last seconds of this fighter would not be gentle. The landing gear hadn't even been deployed and wouldn't be either — Hulk wasn't about to do it and Loki was not mad enough to try to get back to the control panels. That left only the ship's underside as the buffer between the ground and the missiles remaining in the launcher. And if the ship's hull disintegrated… Well, there were things even the God of Mischief wasn't likely to survive.

He tried to make sense of the world beyond the dome of relative serenity he had created for himself and Brandr. The view was muted, flaked with white, but he could make out the Hulk crouching against the air rushing past them as they continued to plummet down. Past the Hulk, Loki had no idea. Everything shook far too much, he couldn't make out a thing.

'Brandr, we might need to jump out,' he said.

Keeping himself facing the front of the fighter so that he could an eye on his spell, Loki shuffled backwards, making sure to always keep one hand firmly gripping the wall. This shield spell wasn't supposed to be held for more than a few seconds. He could feel it begin to slip out of his control.

Once he was right at the back of the fighter, he glanced back through the torn off panelling. They were tearing through clouds. Beneath them were the neat rectangles of farmland bisected by a river that snaked across the landscape. Too high. But it wouldn't be much longer.

'Get over here!' Loki shouted to Brandr.

Brandr nodded. He fumbled with his belt before slipping it off and stood up. Just as Brandr took his first step towards him, Loki felt his spell collapse. The dome slipped to the left, collapsed into itself, then crumpled altogether leaving Loki and Brandr at the mercy of the elements once again.

Loki clenched his hand against a thin pipe — the only handhold he could find in the vicinity. Brandr, on the other hand, hadn't been quick enough to find anything to hold on to. He was flung off his feet and into Loki, who grabbed the boy before he slipped further and out of the fighter entirely. Brandr's arm was slick with blood, so Loki wrapped his hand around the boy's torso and pressed him to his chest.

'We'll be ok,' he muttered into Brandr's ear.

He was fairly certain the boy hadn't heard him, but it didn't matter, there was time for coddling and pep talks. Loki glanced out again. The farmland had ended, to be replaced by dense forest. He could make out the tops of individual trees.

With a wave of his hand, he tore off the still-surviving parts of the fighter's back end, then let himself topple out with Brandr still pressed against him. For a few moments it felt wonderful — the rush of free fall. Then they hit the top of a tree. The impact flipped Loki upside down and before he could right himself, he struck the lower branches. Although it took all of two seconds to tear through the branches, he lost his grip on Brand somewhere along the way.

Loki landed on exposed roots and with his breath knocked out of him, he lay there for a while, too dazed to move. After a few minutes, however, the pain forced him to concentrate on the present. Groaning, he struggled up.

At least three broken ribs. A few glass shards remained embedded. When he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, the needles searing through his right hip nearly made him collapse back to the ground. It was a nasty collection of injuries, but he had suffered far worse. A few healing spells and he would be right to set off. And getting rid of Banner had turned out to be a lot easier than he had anticipated.

He looked for a good tree trunk to lean against while he patched himself up, but his injuries slipped to the back of his mind when he spotted blood trailing over pine needles and strips of bark. Loki followed the blood back to its source — the prone figure of a boy sprawled among the roots of a haughty pine tree.


	14. Above All Shadows Rides The Sun

Bruce woke to the screech of a hawk. He lay on his stomach, soggy pine needles and cones digging into his skin. Although the needles itched, he was in no hurry to move. The sandy ground was damp and petrichor hung in the air, but the rainclouds had cleared. The day was warm and the sun shone overhead. It felt like a pleasant dream; a more pleasant one than anything he'd dreamt of late.

It wasn't a dream, however. His throat was still drier than the Sahara, his stomach twisted with hunger pains and every movement of the muscles of his face threatened to crack his lips anew, leaving him to suck in the welling blood. He didn't need to get up to realise his clothes were in tatters. They had already been in a poor state after the weeks he had spent of the Statesman, but now they were rags. Bruce suspected he knew what had caused that — something must have gone wrong during the landing.

Sighing, Bruce rolled onto his back and brought up his hand to cover his eyes from the sun, which peered down from between tall pine trees. He scrambled up and brushed off the needles still clinging to him.

When he began looking for the fighter, he found only misshapen bits of metal scattered throughout the forest. However, the debris soon led him to a smouldering crater amid half-broken and charred trees. It took one glance to the treetops to figure out which direction the fighter had come from — the ship had cut a violent passage through the branches. There was, at least, no sign of human remains in the crater or around it.

'Loki! Brandr?' Bruce shouted.

He was not surprised in the slightest when no answer came.

Shaking his head, Bruce stripped off what remained of his clothes and arranged them into something resembling a loincloth. He needed to get out of this forest and find somebody in possession of a telephone, but that would inevitably result in some semi-hermit farmer gawking at him as if he were a Neanderthal.

There weren't any paths that Bruce could see, but to the right of him, the ground did begin to gently slope downhill. He decided to head that way. Someone once told him that just about universally humans preferred to build their settlements close to water and water was most likely to be found downhill. Besides, this direction was the least physically demanding.

He passed under the broken pines the fighter had left behind in the last moments of its flight, then continued following the gently sloping contour of the land. He walked slowly, the moss and the pine needles crunching beneath his bare feet. It was a pleasure to feel solid ground beneath him once again. And after living most of the past month under artificial lighting and breathing air re-filtered half-a-hundred times before being pumped through dusty vents, it was nicer still to feel the warm breeze catch his hair and the warmth of the sun on his skin.

Eventually, he stumbled upon a shallow creek. He dropped to his knees on the sandy bank and dipped his hands in. Water had never tasted this good. He gulped down at least half a gallon, then poured some over his head and washed his face.

'Bruce?' a familiar voice said.

He spun around and found himself face to face with Natasha. She had cut and dyed her hair, but it was undoubtedly her peering at him with a bewildered fascination. It was a rare thing to see genuine shock on Natasha's face and if it had been a happier occasion, Bruce would have laughed. At that moment, however, all he managed was an awkward half-smile.

'Yeah, it's me,' he said.

Natasha broke into a broad grin. 'My god, it's been nearly three years. Where have you been?'

'I've… I've been with Thor. For the last little while at least.'

Had it been Tony or Clint or possibly even Steve, this would have been the moment they cheerfully announced his return to everyone on the team intercom system. Natasha, however, seemed only to go quieter. She cocked her head, then with a chuckle, crossed the few feet between them and wrapped him into a hug.

'I wasn't sure I'd ever see you again.'

'You are not the only one.'

Although he longed to pull her closer to him, Bruce tensed. This was more contact than he dared to permit himself. Natasha, too well-trained to miss any nuance of body-language, drew back. She motioned towards the shaded area beneath the trees that grew along the bank.

'Hold on, I'll get one of Tony's drones to drop off some clothes for you,' she said, as Bruce sank onto the ground and she gracefully sat down beside him. 'Tony should have a change of clothes in the jet. I hope they're not too big though, you've lost weight.'

'Food's been a bit of a problem of late.'

Frowning, Natasha made a call over the intercom back to the team jet, then reached behind Bruce. She pulled a couple of berries from one of the low bushes that dotted the area around the creek and offered them to Bruce. 'Here, these should tide you over until we can get a real meal in you.'

He didn't spend much time analysing the berries, noticing only that they were round and dark blue in colour. The flavour was stronger and tarter than he had expected. He was unsure whether his taste buds were not accustomed to real food anymore or if these berries were genuinely stronger in flavour than ones he had eaten previously. Either way, he couldn't restrain himself from picking bare the small shrubs in the vicinity and soon his hands were stained purple.

'When I was training, we were always happy to find these,' Natasha said.

Bruce studied his stained hands. 'I don't remember blueberries leaving this kind of staining.'

'These aren't blueberries. We called them c _hernika;_ I think the English term is bilberry.'

'Are we in Russia?'

'No. These berries are common across many parts of Europe,' Natasha replied. She pulled the branches of the bilberry shrub to the side and pulled off a handful of berries Bruce had missed. 'Bruce, I realise you probably would rather talk about something else, but do you know how you ended up back here? Do you remember what happened to Thor?'

'Yes and no,' Bruce muttered with a sigh.

He was undoubtedly physically attracted to Natasha. What man wouldn't be? However, that wasn't what drove him back to her again and again, but rather the sense of serenity she somehow managed to produce with a few words and a touch of patience. She didn't judge and she didn't demand anything of him. If he were to refuse an answer and decided to sit where they were for the rest of the day, she would have let him.

But at the mention of Thor, Bruce's conscience stirred. This wasn't the day for cosy reunions or idling about in the woods.

'We need to get moving,' he said, climbing to his feet. 'I know I have a lot to explain, but we are short on time. Are the others around? We have a big problem on our hands.'

* * *

Loki wiped his bloody hands on his trousers and reached for the small glass orb that had half-slipped out of Brandr's jacket pocket. The small leaf inside was as unblemished and verdant as it had been when Loki had encased it in the orb. And the glass itself was no less perfect. When he held it up, he couldn't find a single scratch. The orb caught and refracted the sunlight with a grace that seemed to mock Loki. He had woven such spells into that orb that even Mjolnir would have found it a worthy adversary. But for what? A useless little trinket, nothing more.

Something mechanical whirred over Loki's head, startling him out of his thoughts, then parted the shafts of sunlight that had bathed the forest in warm light. Loki turned around and found himself looking up at a familiar red and gold suit. Or, rather, a similar model to one he remembered — the design had evolved since their last meeting. There was, on the other hand, nothing new about Stark's open hostility. As he powered down his thrusters and sank to ground level, he kept his right hand directed at Loki. No doubt there was something explosive and deadly ready to be deployed in Loki's direction at any sign of provocation.

'Good afternoon, Stark,' Loki said. He winced at the stabbing pain in his hip as he shuffled a step sideways to position himself between Brandr and Stark. 'How've you been?'

'Well enough until I saw your face on my planet again,' Stark replied.

Loki groaned when Banner and Black Widow emerged from the trees behind Stark as well. While she drew her pistol and pointed it at Loki, Banner scrambled over to Brandr and began checking for vital signs.

It didn't take him long to realise there were none. Loki had done what he could to slow down the bleeding and to keep Brandr breathing, but he didn't have the skills of a real healer, so he had been unable to do anything about the trauma to Brandr's head. The bleeding had stopped now, and Brandr's limbs would soon grow cold.

Banner's face drained of colour as he glanced up at Loki. 'Did I do this?'

'No,' Loki replied. 'Our ship began disintegrating mid-entry. The landing was sure to kill us, so we jumped. He landed badly.'

He would have liked to place the blame squarely on Banner and revel in the man's guilty conscience, but Loki doubted he had the strength to do justice to that lie. His own conscience weighed too heavily upon him. He had stared out those damaged cockpit windows hour after hour, yet never considered that the shrapnel could have gouged through the thermal protection layer on the cockpit's exterior. A couple of carefully placed spells could have ensured them a smooth landing. But everything he touched, it seemed, was destined to end in ruin.

'It's funny, last I spoke to your brother, he told me you were the one who was dead,' Stark said. 'You must have quite a story to tell.'

Although he sounded as uncongenial as before, he lowered his arm and with a soft whir, his mask lifted apart to reveal his face. He looked older, with deeper lines creasing his forehead and heavier bags under his eyes. Loki wondered how much he had aged since they had last seen each other. It had been a while since Loki last looked at the mirror.

Loki had a sardonic reply ready, but Banner cut in. 'There's nothing funny about any of this.'

'No, there really isn't, right, Loki?' Stark made an oblique hand-signal to Romanova, who lowered her pistol and tapped something on the inside of her wrist. 'I can see you are trying to puff yourself up, but the act would be more convincing if you didn't look half-starved and barely capable of staying on your feet. Your people already saw battle and they lost, didn't they?'

It was a testament to the accuracy of Stark's words that Loki took several seconds to unravel the meaning behind them. He was in dire need of a decent meal and had spent too much energy on magic of late, particularly on keeping Brandr breathing (not that he begrudged the boy this). Once Loki's mind caught on, however, he found himself in possession of a burst of energy he didn't know he had in him. Hope was a stimulant like no other.

'You already know what happened,' Loki said. 'An escape pod from the Statesman made it here.'

'Three of them did,' Romanova answered.

Three? That meant three hundred survivors. A paltry number certainly, but that was three hundred more than Loki had dared to hope for. Had his facsimile truly fooled Thanos long enough to secure them safe passage? Or had the Norns smiled upon them and allowed them to avoid the ships set out to search for them? It didn't matter either way, he supposed. They were alive.

'Where are the people who were on board those ships now?' Loki asked.

Stark's expression darkened. 'Some temporary accommodation has been arranged until a long-term plan is ready. And those that need it are getting medical attention. But here's the thing, I spoke to one of them earlier today. She said she overheard a curious conversation between you, your brother and Bruce before your ship was attacked.'

'They heard our conversation?' Loki frowned. 'Ah, I remember. Thor took out his emotions on the control panel at one point; he must've nudged something. But what of it? I'm not his thrall. Why should I abide by any plan of his?'

'It's three against one here.'

Loki leaned against the trunk of a nearby pine. 'Is that supposed to frighten me? How much information did you get out of me the while I was in SHIELD's custody?'

'Maybe this time we're more motivated to succeed,' Romanova replied.

For all their posturing, Loki remained unimpressed — they didn't have the stomachs to inflict real damage.

No, it was the fact they had found him here at all that was the problem. Loki shouldn't have wallowed in his misery long enough to be found, but he had allowed sentiment to get the best of him. There was a time for grief and this was not it. Thanos crept ever closer. There was no use in a ceremony for Brandr; soon all of Midgard would be his funeral pyre. When he had been Thanos' prisoner, Loki had heard many a story about the man. He had obliterated the Zehoberei in four days. How long would it take him to turn Midgard into a featureless wasteland?

But with Stark here, he couldn't just run now. He would have to wait until the Avengers made a mistake and then seize his chance to flee. In the meanwhile, he could disarm them by feigning a basic level of cooperation — no need to tell them anything that might prolong their battle. There was mercy in a quick death. Perhaps he could even give them false information.

And yet, Loki couldn't bring himself to respond with anything vaguely coherent. Brandr's injury, at least, had meant he had slipped away unaware that he was drawing his last breath. But there were probably dozens of Asgardian children from those escape pods currently counting themselves lucky that they had made it to safety. They deserved a better fate than violent death at the hands of Thanos' servants.

 _Norns be damned. I_ _'ll regret this before the end._

'Very well, I will help you fight Thanos,' Loki said. 'On one condition.'

'Do you want us to kneel and kiss your feet? We've been there before, you and I, it's still not happening,' Stark said.

Loki bit back his instinctive retort and straightened up, then responded. 'We can skip the kneeling and the grovelling this time. I want shelter and decent living conditions for any Asgardians that make it here, for as long as they need it. Nine escape pods left our ship. There is still a chance that more survivors will make it here. I want everyone well looked after.'

'And what about you?' Stark scoffed. 'No trinkets, no crowns you'd demand for yourself?'

'I think I already have a crown. Thor stayed behind on our ship and it's… it's likely he died in the battle, which leaves me as the sole remaining member of the Asgardian royal family. I'm responsible for the welfare of all Asgardians still breathing.'

He was, of course, responsible for a large number of Asgardians who weren't breathing anymore. It was ironic that he found himself face to face with Natasha Romanova at this moment. He had once mocked her for her efforts to clear her ledger, but here he was, attempting to atone for his own misdeeds.

'By the Norns, I had forgotten how infuriating Midgardians are to deal with,' Loki said. 'Don't stare at me like you forgot how to speak. Do you want my help? Yes or no? Ask Banner if you want to confirm my story. He was there for most of it.'

'Bruce?' Romanova said softly.

Banner still sat on the ground by Brandr's body and peered up at Loki with an odd expression on his face. 'Thor said Thanos is after Earth and we would need Loki's help.'

'Fine, done,' Stark said after a lengthy silence. 'Now explain about Thanos and what he wants with our planet.'

Loki laughed. 'Fine! Just like that? I don't think you have the authority to make this decision, Stark. You are rich, but you don't rule the world. I will tell you everything you need to know about the Mad Titan, but not until I see a formal agreement from the governments of this planet giving my people asylum. Do tell them to be quick about it though, time is not on your side.'

A shadow fell over them as a sleek jet slid into view and hovered a few feet above the treetops. Stark glanced up at it with a sour look, then turned his attention back to Loki.

'You're right, I don't,' he said. 'I'll relay your message to the United Nations. They were already convening an emergency meeting today about this sudden influx of Asgardians. While we wait for their confirmation, we should head somewhere with a few more amenities. Both you and Banner look like you could use food and a shower. How does that sound to you?'

Although Loki didn't relish the idea of getting into the Avengers' jet, which frankly did not look all that different from Thanos' fighters, he nodded. A few moment later, they all had shuffle back into the trees — even once the jet folded its wings, the space available between the pines was a tight fit for it.

'Is there a blanket or something like that?' Banner asked as the jet's engines quietened.

'One sec,' Romanova replied. She sprinted up the ramp and clambered into the jet. When she reappeared, she held a thin maroon-coloured blanket in her hand. 'This should do.'

Banner took the blanket from her and unfurled it, then set it down next to Brandr's body.

Swallowing a lump in his throat, Loki motioned for him to stop. 'Hold on, Banner. I'll do it myself.'


	15. Epilogue: I Will Not Say The Day Is Done

A/N: Of course the day I want to post the last chapter of this fic is the day is playing up. Please let me know if anything looks odd on your end, I'll try to fix it.

* * *

The ship was quiet. Peter and Rocket were busy at the front scanning the surrounding area for signs of further survivors. Not that they had much hope, but based on what they understood of Thor's rapid and disjointed explanation of how he had ended up drifting among the debris of his ship, Peter decided they had to do at least a cursory search. The others busied themselves with their own matters, leaving Thor hunched over a plate of jerky and root vegetables by himself.

Gamora watched him from the doorway for a while, giving him time to clear most of the plate, then strode into the room and took a seat across the table from him.

'There's more if you want it,' she said.

Thor set down his fork. 'Thank you. I think this is as much as I should have for the moment.'

'Let me know if you change your mind.' Gamora rested her elbows on the table. 'You mentioned your brother Loki. Dark-haired, rather pale, a couple of inches shorter than you, right? Your parents were Odin and Frigga, but they weren't his—'

'How do you know this?'

'I've met your brother.'

Although those days belonged to her past life, the memories remained undimmed. Loki's dark hair sleek with sweat. Loki desperately trying to blink away blood dripping from the wide gash across his forehead. His hoarse screams as he was dragged back to his cell. Later on, when they had met again, his hair had become caked with dirt and knotted so badly that when Gamora attempted to run her hand through it, she nearly tore a fistful of it out of his scalp.

'I think you had best explain,' Thor replied, his voice growing cold. 'My brother doesn't have a great many friends.'

Gamora shook her head. 'I definitely wouldn't call myself his friend and I'm sure he doesn't think of me that way either. We met when he attempted to escape my father's prison. And we became better acquainted when my father grew frustrated with Loki's continued refusal to go along with the plan. Loki mentioned you and your family a fair bit.'

 _Screamed and begged for you to be precise._

'Your father? Thanos?'

Thor jerked to his feet, flipping the table over and sending the remnants of his meal flying. Gamora, however, was quicker. She leaped back and drew her sword. Keeping herself at a safe distance from Thor, she positioned her weapon defensively.

'Yes, Thanos. But I don't want anything to do with him anymore. I haven't for a very long time. Why don't we sit back down and we can talk properly?'

'Fine,' Thor replied. 'If you hand me your sword.'

Gamora cursed under her breath, then spun the weapon around so that the hilt pointed towards Thor. 'All yours.'

In Thor's hands the sword looked like the weapon of a half-grown child. For all her years of training, she found herself relieved when Thor righted the table and sat back down, setting the sword to rest across his knees.

'Talk,' he ordered.

At that moment she wanted to imitate Peter and give Thor the finger. But as much as she instinctively despised anyone who demanded anything from her, she was conscious that she had created this situation by bringing up her father. After what he had done to Thor's ship and those aboard, Thor's antagonism was understandable.

It was a struggle, nevertheless, to keep her tone civil as she spoke. 'I was very young when Thanos adopted me. He had exterminated my race, the Zehoberei, and killed my parents in front of me, but he spared me and took me in as his own. Not much later, he brought another child back from his conquests — Nebula. He had killed her parents too. We grew up as sisters and were both trained as assassins. In time, however, we both found a way to escape him.'

'Why would he adopt an orphan, let alone two?'

'Like I know. War trophies? Guilt? Why did your father bring Loki into his house?'

Thor scoffed. 'Don't pretend the deeds of our fathers are in anyway equal. And tell me this, why would an assassin be brought in to deal with a disobedient prisoner?'

'A test. For me as much as for your brother.'

'Did you pass?'

'He led the Chitauri invasion of Earth, didn't he?'

Gamora's gaze drifted to her sword; this was a dangerous moment. Once Loki's eyes shifted to scarlet and raised markings of his true form were exposed, she had stilled her knife. Thankful for this show of mercy, Loki had talked. In fact, he had rambled endlessly and Gamora had contemplated tearing out his tongue to preserve her own sanity. But after listening to him, she had come to realise that the relationship between Loki and Thor as they came into adulthood differed little from Gamora and her sister. They quarrelled, truly despised one other at times, but against the wider world, they were a united front.

When she looked up at Thor again, his expression was as thunderous as she had expected.

'I hope one day to ask your brother for forgiveness,' she said softly.

'He is not the forgiving type.' Thor lifted Gamora's sword to his eye level and seemed to examine the sharpness of its edge. 'If you spent any time with him, as you claim you have, you would know this. Perhaps you also know he thinks of me as a hot-headed fool. So why bring up your history with my brother? Or do you want me to strike you down? A guilty con —'

'I want your help.'

 _There. I said it. It took too long to get around to it, but we got there at the end._

'You just told me you tortured my brother to near insanity,' Thor replied.

'The thing about allies, everything tends to fall apart when you keep important personal things from each other,' Gamora said. 'Best we lay out all the dirty secrets at the beginning.'

'I appreciate your candour.'

He distinctly sounded like he did not appreciate a single word Gamora had said so far, but she went on nevertheless. 'You've gathered by now that Thanos is a monster. He wreaks havoc everywhere he turns. He twists people into doing despicable things on his behalf. My sister and I were innocent children; he turned us into murderers, thieves and torturers. Your brother fought him for a time, but in the end, Thanos claimed him for his own too. And we are three among billions of his victims. This can't go on, Thanos has to die.'

That got Thor's attention. He set Gamora's sword back down on his knees and raised an eyebrow. 'Go on.'

'He's not going to be easy to kill, but my sister is very committed to achieving patricide and she believes she has finally found a way,' Gamora said.

She was all too conscious of the infuriated rants she would have to listen to later. Peter had been dubious about including Thor on their plan when Gamora suggested it and Nebula, who mistrusted and hated just about everyone, would be livid when she heard the news. But from what Gamora had learned of Thor from Loki and what she had observed since they had dragged Thor inside their ship, she thought he could be an asset to them.

'We plan to strike while he rendezvous with his allies in preparation for the attack on Earth,' she continued. 'The Sanctuary will be teeming with people and small ships will be flitting back and forth from one carrier to another. This is our best opportunity to slip on board undetected. If you want to pay Thanos back for what he did to your people and your brother, we could use an extra person on the team.'

'If I could, I'd kill him ten times over.' Thor smiled and offered the sword back to Gamora. 'You'll be needing this, won't you?'

* * *

A/N: I am going to finish off the story at this point because if I go further, I'll end up writing the Infinity War itself and since I like the talent of the Marvel hivemind, that's not a story I feel I can give justice to. But, just a couple of things before I let Feige take over:

Just a couple of things I'd like to mention before I let Kevin Feige take over:

First, thank you so much to everyone who has left feedback. You guys are amazing. Writers tend to get stuck in their head obsessing about plotholes and whether that pesky line of dialogue will ever sound right. It's great to know that somewhere out there people are actually enjoying the final product.

Second, the Gamora and Thor thing is a last-minute nugget that popped into my head. I am not as familiar with the Guardians of the Galaxy characters as I am with the rest of the MCU, so my apologies if I messed up on any details or the timeline.

And one last thing, how many people noticed Heimdall is not in this story? I started writing this fic after seeing Ragnarok once and completely forgot that he should've been on the ship with Thor and Co until I was several chapters in. No one has pointed out to me, so I've been wondering whether no one has picked up the error or if everyone is just too polite to mention it.


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